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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERIOA. 









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A 



A LABOR CATECHISM 

OF 

POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



A Study for the People. 



COMPRISING THE PRINCIPAL ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST THE 
PROMINENT DECLARATIONS OF THE INDUSTRIAL 
PARTY, REQUIRING THAT THE STATE AS- 
SUME CONTROL OF INDUSTRIES. 



By OSBORNE WARD. 



'* Nature often apportions talent, genius and capacity to those whom 
society repudiates. '— Godin. 



V 



NEW YORK. 

1878. 



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V 









C0PTE1SHT, J8?8, Bf 

OSBORNE WARD. 



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Troio Printing and Book-binding Co. new toek. 






This Work is too radical a Catechism on private duty 
for public ends, to be published by the book concerns, 
and too large and expensive an undertaking, for a work- 
ingman. It is enough for one to write; — too much for 
one to publish. The author is indebted to the generos- 
ity of Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson, for much of this lack- 
in or aid. Her benevolent gifts are well known both 
in this country, and in Europe. If she trusts your 
motives, she never asks whether you are Jew, or Gen- 
tile; — never asks what you have been, or makes 
you promise what you will be; — but gives from the 
purest and most unselfish impulses ; leaving to God 
the results, and with individuals the responsibilities. 

"We're each a part of God's great Plan. 
Then let all do the best they can." 

There is no doubt this book will not be believed, by 
many, until the pure Labor Movement commands an 
investigation. The author's only plea to those who re- 
ject its contents, is, that they rend it carefully, kindly. 
He had to read many books, make voyages, consult 
authors, editors, statesmen, as well as observe the 



PREFACE. 

condition of utter slavery, in which Labor helplessly 
lies, before his own prejudices gave way to the truth. 
Experience has taught him these opinions. He only 
asks that others do the same. 

There is also an opinion that Americans will not or- 
ganize themselves, and take questions here treated, in 
consideration. This is a mistake. But the Americans 
organize differently from all others. They organize by 
Party. Party is based upon PRINCIPLES. Principles 
must be discussed. Consent must be first achieved 
through the bold, and thorough canvass of these opin- 
ions; and organization will be the least source of trouble. 
The Author's life work will be accomplished, if his 
books and lectures aid in arousing the American mind 
to take up the consideration of these great Principles 
from their depths; believing that collective opinion 
will do the Test well, in the cause of the enslaved. 
He claims only consistency, in unwaveringly maintaining 
the Pkinciples explained in these chapters; believing 
them alone, the Basis of the true Labor Problem. 

Having suffered for this course, at various Conferences 
and Conventions, and for sinking the ambitions of men, 
through abiding faith in these fundamental TRUTHS, 
and outlived much of the obloquy which decried his 
lectures, he feels an especial pride and joy, in seeing these 
night clouds now break and scatter, one by one, before 
the ineffable dawn of a day of Economic Emancipation. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The coming subject of discussion and agitation among 
the people, and especially the Laboring People, is to-day, 
the same which has been more or less discoursed in private 
and in public, ever since the dawn of the philosophic age 
of Greece. 

How much do men know? How much are they capable 
of knowing? These questions were asked by Zeno, by So- 
crates, by Aristotle, nearly four hundred years before Christ. 
It was denied by some of the sages of those times that man 
was capable of positively knowing anything. Aristotle said 
that the only method man could take, by which to arrive at 
an unmistakable knowledge of truth, was by beginning with 
small things; by investigating through comparison, reason 
and analysis; by beginning with the least and working out 
to the greatest ; leaving nothing neglected, nothing unstud- 
ied, nothing which investigation had not wrought some bril- 
liant of truth from, or added some hitherto unknown gem 
to the diadem of knowledge. The question is the same now 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

but more pointed. How much political economy do we 
know"? Can men take mutual care of themselves? However 
much, the world has repudiated that old doctrinal question 
of the great philosophers of Ancient Greece, it is plain to 
every one who reviews the methods of the world's moral 
and mechanical development, that progress has ever follow- 
ed, and is still following the lesson given by them. The 
mind of man is evidently still in its infancy ; and it seems 
susceptible of growing ripe and rich, only as it attains these 
separate auxiliary gems by the light of each successive in- 
vestigation and experiment. The true secret of advance- 
ment lies in an instrument. This instrument is mechanical. 
With it the unpolished mechanic is moving the world. He 
is at the helm of mechanics. There is not a science that 
does not develop from mechanics. The figures of Leverier 
were useless without the accompanying telescope and pen. 
The glory of the nineteenth century is due to the invention 
and application of steam, of the telegraph, of the printing 
press, and of a thousand other forms of mechanics. 

Now the application and diffusion of these instruments of 
science, of human knowledge, is just that which is maldng 
the world wise; and the happiness of the human race does, 
and ever must depend upon the wisdom with which these 
mechanical instruments, mostly the product of the humble 
worker, are applied in the production and the distribution of 
our means of life and development. Tne merest tyro may, 
therefore, see that this is political Economy, in its widest 
and most practical sense. 

This ancient plan of research and investigation, by both 
theory and experiment suggested by Aristotle, led to the es- 
tablishment of great laboratories, museums and libraries at 
Athens and in Egypt, three hundred years before Christ; 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

and nearly all the inventions, charts and books in the world 
had to be collected into small compass, in order to attract 
the attention of scholars, while the g*reat masses of the peo- 
ple scattered over the world, were not only without their 
uses, but were, ignorant of their existence. 

The world's subsequent labors reversed these conditions. 
Now, all such instruments are diffused: scattered over every 
part of the civilized globe ; and the people are using ihem. 

In those days, it was easy for an ignorant adventurer to 
send his brutal squadrons to Alexandria, and destroy those 
invaluable specimens of books and invention, of which no 
duplicates existed. Now, every individual specimen of ei- 
ther book or mechanical appliance poscsses hundreds, per- 
haps even millions of its kind; and thus the destroyer can 
no longer annihilate them because they are in actual use, 
throughout all the lanes of life. 

The subject of discussion, therefore, although similar to 
that of more primitive ages, varies in its almost infinite dif- 
fusiveness. The ancient asked how an instrument of hu- 
man knowledge and development could be made. Curiosity 
and desire of self culture, brought men from the antipodes 
to see it. The modern, seeing the instrument constantly be- 
fore him, asks how it shall be applied to use. What is the 
wisest method of applying all this science, art, invention, 
so preeminently capable of producing the necessaries of hu- 
man existence, and of producing them with such marvel- 
ous rapidity? What shall be, in future, the control or man- 
agement over them ? Shall the labor-saving instrument be 
amonopolizible thing? Must our potent sciences, envel- 
oped in wealth, woven with railroads, electric instruments 
and lines of steamers, busy with factories, farms, literature, 
be forever operated by the same narrow, competitive pro- 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

cess that the comparatively ignorant ancients used ? Must it 
still do in our age, when they have multiplied by millions, 
and have diffused themselves to such a degree that the eye 
and the ear encounter them at every turn? Among the an- 
cients, the isolated family, the individual, the competitor, 
were the only source of government recognized, as applied 
to the manipulation of labor and its products. All things rul- 
ing outside the labor societies, were operated from a cen- 
tral principle of competism. Every kind of business had a 
conservative character. The tendency was constantly to ag- 
gregate. At the present day, the constant tendency is to 
disperse ; and humanity becomes diffused, in a direction of 
levelism. 

Is the competitive principle applicable then, to modern 
humanity ? The competitive system was natural to the an- 
cient mind because religion was exclusive, and favorable to 
individualism. The family was a world by itself. Over it 
the father held supreme power. He could punish his wife or 
his child with death. Back of that monarch — the ancient 
family despot — there was no appeal. From the family arose 
phratries, tribes, cities, nationalities, modeled from the same 
ignorant and bigoted usages, and consequently establisae:] tin- 
der the same despotic regime. Jealousy, self-love, and many 
concomitants of absolutism, and competitive rivality were 
quite natural, even consistent with a public opinion which 
such a state of things produced. But Christianity, it is said, 
broke the pagan religion down. Why then, does the com- 
petitive system still hold unlimited sway? The competitive 
system of control is natural to individualism and human 
selfishness ; yet the race is drifting, by the light of science 
and its instruments, into liberalism ; and governments are 
becoming democracies or republics. Why then, should the 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

control of the scientific labor-saving instrumentalities so infi- 
nitely more diffused than those of the ancients, continue in 
the hands of individualists? If governments, which were 
manipulated by competing individuals in ancient days, have 
changed from the despotic to the democratic form, why 
may not the control of the people's industries be also rela- 
tively changed from the despotic, or competitive, to the 
democratical form ? 

Public opinion must bend to knowledge; to demonstra- 
ble truth. It cannot always remain the poltroon of a mono- 
poly-hugging, competitive system, however delusive its incul- 
cations and natural instincts. The control and ownership of 
production and distribution tend to escape from the bauds 
of the individual, and to be assumed by the people them- 
selves ; and this variation of its control, and ownership must 
keep pace with the variation of the form of government, 
from the despotic to the democratic. 

It is a mistake to suppose, that there ever was a time when 
the people of Greece and Rome could have enjoyed a votive 
franchise and elected their own choice of men to control poli- 
tics. The popular idea is, that they did ; but this opinion is 
derived from the fact that those ancient governments were 
called republics. Research into the truth reveals to us, how- 
ver, that magistrates, — who were religious priests, by a 
rite of the ancient religion — used to consult the heavens at 
night, in search of the will of the gods, concerning the eli- 
gibility of candidates ! The people were too unenlightened 
and superstitious to see these tricks of priestcraft; and it of- 
ten happened that an unpropitious star, meteor, or phosphor- 
escent light was interpreted by such priest-soothsayers as un- 
favorable omens against the favorite of the poor majorities 
who, on the day of elections, felt themselves obliged through 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

their own religious superstitions, to vote against their free 
choice, and were thus duped. 

The best and most democratical governments the world 
has produced are these of our own. Political control is rap- 
idly outgrowing despotic control. The mind of man has, 
since those days, changed from the exclusive ideas that led 
to concentrativeness, into ideas of fellowship, which lead to 
business co-operaticn, joint management, republicanism. 

By whatsoever the present generation has developed, 
through the repudiation of religious superstitions, the in- 
roads of mechanics, public schools, postal bureaus, galleries 
and museums of art and science, and general enlightenment, 
•which all come from the errors of the past, as well as the 
successes of the present, and the hopes of the future, by 
just so much is modern Government better than ancient. 
Yet notwithstanding all this, there has scarcely been a jot 
of improvement in the control of business, which produces 
the means of existence and of happiness of the millions, for 
whom these governments are made ! There has been much 
political and scientific growth, but no corresponding eco- 
nomic growth among the proletarian classes. 

Out of this mechanical enginery, produced by the study 
and toil of working people, we see much social improve- 
ment among the wealthy and medium portions of communi- 
ty, yet nothing but degradation among those whom society 
persists in making no provisions for. People still refuse to 
control the making and distributing of their life-means, 
on the mutual principle that has succeeded so well, when ap- 
plied to political and judicial government. 

It is the author's belief that it is as possible for any enlight- 
ened people who possess such means for facilitating Indus- 
rial Economy, both in production and distribution, to govern 



INTRODUCTION 7 

their economical methods of labor, as it is to govern their 
political methods of law-giving. The people of this coun- 
try make their own laws collectively. Why should they 
not make their own bread collectively ? They can agree 
so far as to elect representatives, and send them to Con- 
gress and Legislatures, pay them for their work, watch 
over their actions, study and criticise their motives, ap- 
prove and accept, or censure and repudiate the laws 
which they create. Why cannot they, also, elect repre- 
sentative men to take control of theii cotton mills, instead 
of leaving this important branch of supply forever in the 
hands, and at the caprice of irresponsible individuals, with- 
out the least improvement (except in mechanical instru- 
ments ) upon the methods that prevailed in the days of the 
clesaes ? Political government has become democratical. 
Why is mechanical government still monarchical ? 

These thoughts lead us to ask whether it is possible for 
the mechanical, or more properly, the economical affairs of 
mankind, to be assumed under a democratical or commu- 
nistic form . But we do not reflect that this same question 
once was asked of republicanism, or government by the peo- 
ple. There now remains no longer a doubt of the perfect 
capabiity of the people to govern themselves. Every 

experiment proves it. Every new republic acts as a puri- 
fier of human intelligence, and the plan is growing more 
popular every year throughout enlightenment. 

But has the plan of a democratic administration of our 
economical and household affairs ever been submitted to 
a similar collective test ? Certainly ; and on a vast scale ; 
and by the government ! Nothing can be more intimately 
connected with our household, our private, and our business 
matters than the business of the great Post Office. It is a 



8 INTRODUCTION 

natural part of the people's business which political govern- 
ment adjusts; but it is intimately related to our economical 
means of producing and enjoying the means of life. It is 
so vast that it cannot be operated by an individual. 

Besides, the people, collectively, are eternal ; while as 
individuals, they are fleeting. Individual, and even joint 
stock enterprises, however large and prosperous, are fleet- 
ing and perishable. They owe their present, and their 
future to a man or to a certain set of men who, while they 
live, are the supreme rulers of their industries. Thus the 
people are supposed to have no right to question arbitrary 
dispensations ; because they are beyond their collective con- 
trol. 

The reverse is the fact in regard to all business enterprises 
which are the undertakings of a state or government. Al- 
though any individual, be he a private, or a ruler, may die, 
yet the collective individual, the great Body Politic, 
never dies. In the modern form of elective republicanism, 
this mutual collectivity is not only eternal, endowed with a 
constantly self purifying tendency, but it is supreme in its 
control. This collective control dispenses the laws. It 
operates from year to year, all the vast practical business 
as well as theoretical functions of a great government. 

Auxiliary to this government is the Post Office. The 
Postal Department grew out of, or rather out-grew a joint 
stock company. While a company carried the mails of 
the nation, the people were supposed to have nothing to 
say; they were obliged to submit to paying prices for their 
letter carrying service, such as in these days, would be con- 
sidered insufferable. Gradually, however, the people have 
assumed this business. Instead of the old monarchical form, 
this business is now conducted under a democratical form ; 



INTRODUCTION 9 

and experience has made it very dear to the people general" 
ly. It will be shown in these chapters that it is yet far 
from being perfect ; but it is made to answer the purpose 
very well until we are enabled by our own experience, 
to see light more clearly. 

The public schools furnish another important instance 
of the application of the principle of democracy to the 
practical uses of great masses of people by the collective, 
instead of the individual control . This institution is 
democratical and a reverse of individualism in principle; 
however imperfect its details may be, owing to ignorance 
of the people who control it. It is an institution which 
is rapidly assuming enormous proportions. It is so dem- 
ocratical that it educates the poor man's child with the rich 
man's money; and this collective power, the people find , is 
a safeguard to the perpetuity of their democratical form 
of government ; because it develops one of the most 
important resources of national prosperity and happiness — 
the intellect . It is impossible to compute the immense 
importance of this intellectual developement, to a nation. 

When the people, as a collective unit, have grown, 
by experience, in appreciation of this importance, they 
will doubtless convert the public schools into colleges, 
with preparatory and graduating departments ; and make 
them vie, in every respect, with the noblest colleges of the 
world. These schools are controlled by the people in 
common, who have already established laws in some 
states, rendering it compulsory upon the children to at- 
tend. The public school is a vast business undertaking 
of the people, who by their votes and labors, control it 
collectively; and through it, the monarchical idea of 
business control, is being effectually expelled. 



10 INTRODUCTION 

Still another important example of the growth of 
collective over individual control, is seen in the system of 
hospitals and dispensaries. The reason of this steady 
growth is, that the public are more careful than the house- 
hold, of the sick. Experience teaches that a private 
house, even if it be a home, is a poor place to take one, 
afflicted with a contagion ; and altogether the wrong 
place for the sick generally. The public are also becoming 
aware that a great wrong is being practiced upon them 
by druggists, who, in collusion with doctors, exact exor- 
bitant prices for medicines ; and especially, for the pre- 
scriptions of these physicians. The continuous tendency, 
therefore, of the public, is to supplant this ancient system 
of the individual, by means of which he exacts large pri- 
vate profits, with public hospitals and dispensaries. 

These institutions are maintained mostly by appropria- 
tion from Congress, Legislatures or municipal government, 
over which the people preside. They are consequently, 
democratical ; and the people make the management of 
them, a legitimate subject of discussion and of political 
action. Thus people are forced into the supervision, eco- 
nomical as well as medical, of their own sick and suf- 
fering. The people, in common, are learning to take 
charge of themselves. They must, in the logic of such 
a system, be constrained to do it well. They must make 
the noble and growing dispensary, a home. The idea 
that these institutions are eleemosynary in character, 
and that, to frequent the dispensary for medical service 
is akin to beggary, and therefore degrading, is false and 
foolish. It does not belong to sober business economies. 
"Not does it savor of sound judgement. It is an idea 
based mainly upon vanity. The people make the dis- 



INTRODUCTION" 11 

pensaries. They own and control them. Is it not re- 
spectable then, for them to enjoy that which is their 
own ? These carpings at mistaken respectability, are 
unbecoming the sound judgement of a great public. 

They have almost entirely outgrown this vanity in 
its application to the public school. Why should they not 
be equally dignified in patronizing any other common 
interest ? 

It is the often expressed doubt of many whether the 
true theory of democracy will, when submitted to a 
whole people, with all their contrarieties of thought, 
their conflicting interests, their love of amusement and 
flattery, and their general ignorance, stand a solid and 
practical trial. The pessimists in political economy and 
governmental advancement, are dismayed by the popu- 
lar and increasing clamor that surges and roars on ev- 
ery side, bitter with accusation of malfeasance in office, 
and convicting by scores, the chosen representatives of 
the people. To all such doubters the world is better 
prepared to-day, than ever before, to make an agreeable 
report in the affirmntive. The indications are, that this 
democracy is successful, so fir as its theory has gone 
into practical trial. The dismay caused by the convic- 
tion of a defaulter, need not discourage us. Tiie fact 
that individuals are often caught and convicted, does not 
prove that, under more ancient methods of government 
no such rogues existed. On the contrary; it proves that 
under the democratical system, the people are anxious 
to see the corruption of their representatives exposed, 
and criminals punished. This was not the case under 
the monarchical system, where one man, or one set of 
men, held perpetual control. 



12 INTRODUCTION 

The consequence is, that the business of ferreting 
out rogues has become popular and lucrative to many 
persons who enter upon it. The people are honest. 

They want to know the truth ; and will reward, by 
their patronage, any one who will furuish them with 
it. This has created of late years, an enormous news- 
paper business. It has also occasioned the modern in- 
centive to writing books containing the opinions of in- 
dividuals, concerning true principles of political economy, 
regarding statistics, and examples. The same popular 
craving after the knowledge of the truth, is what makes 
oratory successful ; and thousands of good public speak- 
ers are kept busy, canvassing the relative capacity and 
honesty of the people's candidates. All these efforts 
shed light upon the inner qualification of the aspirant, 
and the office holder. No amount of labor or expense 
is spared to enlighten the people concerning them. 

The fire that illuminates the prairie, crackles loudly as 
it burns, and purines the ague swamps ; but it is the 
loud crackling that dismays the timid one. He will not 
open his eyes to see the light. If he w r ould, he would 
see the miasma disappear, the dark forms of public 
robbers lurk away for safety. He w T ould seek to have 
them caught and brought to trial. In old times, and 
under less favorable systems, these robbers prowled and 
glutted themselves, upon the people's accumulations un- 
molested. Indeed they were sovereign. There was no 
light to expose them. They held the masses in subju- 
gation. In modern democracy, the reverse is true ; and 
as the light of honest truth is requisite to collective 
prosperity, the public will pay for it. The great news- 
paper is consequently assuming the function of the cen- 



INTRODUCTION 7 3 

sor, the tribune, and the lictor. Humanity may rejoice 
rather than he frightened at the result ! 

Nine in eleven of all the individual enterprises of this 
country are, by statistical count, known to end in failure. 

About one half the joint stock companies fail. But 
in relief of this, four fifths of all the government enter- 
prises succeed. These cardinal facts alone, are sufficient 
to embolden the advocate of government employment, 
or the employment mutually, of the people, by the peo- 
ple, for the sake of the employment and the product, 
rather than for the sake of profits to a con tro ling few. 

If nine out of eleven of the individuals who ven- 
ture time and money upon business enterprises are found 
to fail, it is time to doubt the capacity of an individ- 
ual to conduct business at all. It is also time that the 
people, who must be supplied by some means, should 
begin to cast about for a method that will be more 
successful. Why does the individual so frequently and 
so ingloriously fail ? Is it not because he lacks the 
requisites of means, of judgement, of tact, that are indis- 
pensable to success, and if so, do not a large number of in- 
dividuals, say a nation of people, if they can come to 
terms of agreement, possess just these various requi- 
sites of money, of jndgement and of tact, that would 
ensure success ? It is doubly evident that they do ; 
since they also possess the labor, which they always 
prefer to sell to themselves, rather than to others. 

If one half of the joint stock company enterprises 
of the country, that are undertaken, prove failures, is 
it not high time that the great masses who most suf- 
fer by such failures, by reason of the dearth of em- 
ployment, the financial depressions, and the demoralization 



14 INTRODUCTION 

they create, should launch out upon the study of a 
method that will add better factors of success ? And 
does not the fact that a larger percentage of enter- 
prises under the direction of companies succeeds, than 
under the direction of an individual, prove that the 
factors of success in business lie in the variety of re- 
quisites which numbers furnish f 

There is always one danger which the masses have 
to fear from corporations ; — that which has given ex- 
pression to the maxim, that " corporations have no 
souls." Yet this selfishness that makes so cruel a 
saying true, is undoubtedly just, as applied to the 
welfare of all the members of that corporation. 

What a powerful argument, then, does this black 
maxim furnish, in favor of augmenting the number 
of the company in control, until it includes the ma- 
jorities of the people \ The reason why the corpor- 
ation has no soul, is because the business formula of 
rules, and of discipline, governing, and agreed to, by 
that body, render it possible for the individuals to 
shirk moral responsibility. 

Business rules are inelastic and void of conscientious- 
ness. Individuals are not. The individual operates a 
business for himself, and fails nine times in eleven. 

The joint stock company runs a business for itself, 
and fails five times in ten. No one will deny that 
each individual engaged in these enterprises, is actuated 
by motives of self interest. But what makes a num- 
ber succeed so much more frequently than a single 
person ? The answer is easy. It is because, in a 
number, who understand the principle of agreement, 
there are more factors of success. There is more 



INTRODUCTION" 15 

capital and a greater variety of talent, which, is req- 
uisite to the well-being of the business. If there is 
agreement, there is certainly a number of individuals, 
each with his peculiar aptitudes of business tact, and 
pecuniary means. This is evidently the reason why 
the joint stock companies succeed so much more fre- 
quently than the individual, who has only his own 
resources, and is often devoid of experience. The 
whole argument, then, suggested by these statistics, 
shows that there can be no danger from this augment- 
ation of the numbers engaged in an enterprise, even 
though this number include the entire people. 

First, because collective ownership and control dis- 
sipate, effectively, the danger mentioned, regarding the 
soullessness of corporations. The corporation works on- 
ly for the interests of the half dozen individuals who 
form it. It is gruff and heartless to all others. 

The people's collective enterprise is equally selfish ; 
but it includes the entire people, and consequently must 
consult the welfare of all. Secondly : admitted that it 
possesses elements of agreement, it certainly possesses 
all the factors of variety of talent, of adaptiveness, of 
aptitude, of genius, and, not the least among its indis- 
pensable requisites, it has means, and labor of its own 
which it prefers to appropiate to its own business rather 
than sell to others. 

If four fifths of the government enterprises succeed, 
does it not show that agreement is a possible thing ? 

It is possible for joint stock companies to enlarge 
their numbers so as to include, not only a dozen, or 
a hundred thousand members, and agree so perfectly, 
as to perform the most difficult functions of business ; 



16 INTRODUCTION 

both legislative and mechanical. It may be said that 
co-operation of large numbers, instead of the joint stock 
companies of a few, is a new thing in the world : and 
therefore, a precarious example to judge from. 

Not so ; for if we are to believe the history of Christ, 
and his apostles, the co-operative principle was carried 
into operation successfully ; and further, that it assumed 
so radical a form, that not only labor, and the product 
of labor were held, distributed, and enjoyed in common, 
but the Co-operative societies of the early christians, 
were churches, or mutual self-help curies. Let no one 
fear that cooperation does not possess elements of suc- 
cess. On the contrary ; it is as much more successful 
than joint stock companies, as the latter are more suc- 
cessful than the single individuals. 

The co-operative societies have accumulated vast 
sums of money which they appropriate to many of the 
different industries, with perfect success. They have no 
longer any difficulty in owning and controling, in com- 
mon, their immense flouring mills, steam engine works, 
printing establishments, and cotton and woollen mills. 
They make many of their own shoes, bake their own 
bread, own and operate their chop, and sausage works, 
tan their own leather, and are among the best inventors 
and discoverers of methods for economizing, and adapt- 
ing labor to their own supply. The ratio of progres- 
sion in these collectively managed, and mutually reciprocal 
enterprises, is incredible. They are able to build lines 
of steamers to America for purposes of mutual travel, 
and supply. A hundred more years of such growth will 
force the pen of political economists out of its wonted 
grooves of argument, from the old standpoint of compe- 



INTRODUCTION 17 

tism, into a broad and bold defense of common interests. 

If the social, or co-operative experiments of different 
people, are not sufficient to convince the reader of the 
justice and feasibility of collective ownership and control, 
in productive and distributive, as well as legislative in- 
dustries, let him consult statistics, on a still more pon- 
derous scale, and satisfy himself, regarding the ratio of 
progression in collective control by so prodigious, versa- 
tile, and mercurial an element, as the population of the 
United States. 

In four fifths of their business operations, the govern- 
ments—Municipal, State, and General— of this people, have 
succeeded. In this cast no mention is made of the form 
of legislation, the manner of conducting wars, or the 
method of choosing the representatives of the people ; 
simply the actual business operations under government, 
or rather, popular control. 

The people have been quite successful in nearly ev- 
ery thing of this kind they have attempted, as a body 
politic. Within a century, they have shown their a- 
bility to manipulate, in the capacity of a compound in- 
teger, or a collective unit, almost every sort of busi- 
ness affair which hitherto had been conducted exclu- 
sively by individuals. Many of these enterprises, are 
brought about and operated, not only for the sake of 
the improvement they afford, in their various functions 
of production and otherwise, but notably for the sake 
of the permanent, and economical labor, which they 
offer to the people, who own them, and in whose col- 
lective interest they are operated. 

The public schools are an example of this kind of 
enterprise. The people possess them, support them by 



18 INTRODUCTION 

their own wealth and industry, educate their children 
by means of them, develop the grandest resource of 
their national wealth by them, which is the public in. 
tellect; and at the same time, find employment for a 
great many of their own numbers, in the capacity of 
supervisors, teachers aud janitors. 

The general status of the human intellect has, with- 
in a century been greatly elevated, both in America 
and in parts of Europe by the public school ; and it 
is to-day the most potent agent in existence, of human 
development, driving our superstition and darkness of 
every form from the world, and shedding much of the 
luster that distinguishes ours, from ages that are gone. 

Much of the advance which has been made in me- 
chanics, that have given the modern world so extraor- 
dinary an impulse, is due to the support of govern- 
ments. Mechanics are at the bottom of national pro- 
gress. Through the mechanic arts, mankind have made 
healthful advances in the direction of true enlightenment. 
3sTow, no inconsiderable encouragement is being given to 
mechanics, by governments. This Steam Fire Engine 
is one of the most perfect mechanisms in the world. It 
is, indeed, an institution, more perfect, if possible, than 
the Public School. Such an exquisite labor-saving ap- 
paratus, rolling and fuming down our avenues, mounted by 
heroes of the fire-brand and water tube, is a stirring, but 
not uncommon sight. It glistens with the polish of its 
proud keeper; is powerful in nerve, and restive for em- 
ployment. A citizens home is in flames ! And a dozen 
of these beauteous monsters followed by hook and lad- 
der chariots are quickly centering in, to the rescue of 
that home. The wonderful telegraph has noiselessly 



INTRODUCTION 19 

transmitted order upon order, dictated their route thith- 
er, indicated the exact spot, named the foreman, and 
appointed, from headquarters, each workman. The cen- 
tral administration has appointed to each, his work, 
w T ith a science that effects the greatest result from the 
least number of men. There are no supernumeraries-. 
Indeed, the curiosity seekers are not wanted. They are 
out of place. The steam pumps are instantly connect- 
ed to their hose ; the couplings are screwed to the hy- 
drants ; the men at the nozzles are aiming at the glar« 
ing element that is gnawing down the peaceful citizen's 
home ; and with incredible celerity and unconcern, and 
with scarcely a visible motion, the burning property is 
deluged from attic to basement, and the fire extinguished. 
This case of the Steam Fire-extinguishing Department, 
thus comes up before us, as an argument. It is, perhaps, 
the best, of the four or five communistic instrumentalities, 
of which the world can yet boast. The Public School is in- 
deed, something magnificent; but this is more mechanical; 
although they are both industries, and belong to the Labor 
Question. Every person in the city, has an interest in the 
fire destroyer. His very safety depends, by night and day, 
upon its effectiveness. It is far more reliable, and less indi- 
vidually selfish, than the fire insurance system of compan- 
ies; and is superseding and supplanting them. It watches 
the poorest of the poor, as well as the opulent. Men, wo. 
men and children, of all conditions, are unselfishly protect- 
ed by this wonderful agent, provided it is properly kept, 
and scientifically operated. Now the fact that these 
operations of this tire-police are unselfish, that they must 
benefit every individual of the community in order to 
benefit a single individual, is what makes it an engine of 



20 INTRODUCTION 

Communism. It is a branch of mechanical science, applied 
to the social welfare, and exemplifies the aphorism " each 
for all and all for each." 

But does it enforce the aphorism " each for all and all 
for each?" How does it make practical the theory 
of the labor movement, that political economy demands 
the greatest possible result of labor from the least pos- 
sible effort ? How does it purify itself from corruption 
in its administration by the watchfulness of the people 
from year to year. The answers to these questions are 
an explanation of the phenomena of communism, as the 
basis of political economy. They expose the absurdities, 
and the anarchical, and unscientific tendencies of the 
dogma of individual sovereignty. 

In the steam fire engine this is done. It is a political 
instrument. It belongs to the people. It is a part of 
their democratic government. The people are voters. 
The vote of the poor man is as good as the vote of the 
rich man ; and this is the poor man's only guarantee of 
perfect equality. Take away this attribute of manhood 
and he is a slave. The city is the commune, of which 
every voter is a member in good standing. It is also 
a common property, of which every member owns an 
untransferable share ; — the share of citizenship. Conse- 
quently, the voter is constantly on the alert. It is the 
poor man's only hope. He organizes, watches, criticises 
its government, employs the best detectives to invest- 
igate and report the acts of his agents, and thus forces 
them to be scientific and thorough. In fact, experience 
shows that voters have very well succeeded in ferret- 
ing out, exposing, and punishing those servants who 
have dared to subordinate the great principle of col- 



INTRODUCTION 2L 

lective interest, to the welfare of the individual. 

But there remains another great class of Industries 
which the true Labor Movement alone, can force into 
the care of Governments. Namely: Agriculture, and 
Manufacture. When we, as a nation of people, learn 
to cultivate our own crops, manufacture our own cot- 
ton, silk, woollen and other goods; our own boots and 
shoes; apply our knowledge of Mechanics, of every kind, 
for the supply of human wants, to PRODUCTION, the 
same as we are applying our knowledge of Mechanics 
to the Fire Department, the Postal Bureau, and the 
Arsenals; when people can, as a collective individual, do 
that which now, is so unkindly done by the isolated in- 
dividual, and do it as well as it is dene in the example 
of the Steam Fire Engine, then, and not till then, will 
the Labor Problem be solved. Political Economy is to- 
day trembling and creaking on the hinges of this col- 
lective control. 



OF 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



CHAPTER I 



CONVERSATION" 
Between a Delegation from the United Shop-keep- 
ers, Butchers, Dry Goods Merchants, Fuel Dealers 

and Apothecaries. 

• 

Chairman. We are a Delegation from a mutual 
Organization for the protection of our special interests. 
We are sent to the Industrial Council to obtain direct 
information, concerning the object of the radical move- 
ment. 

Response. Our movement is nothing other than an 
innocent Co-operation of working men and women for 
Self Help. 

Delegate. Do you call secret Trade Unions and oth- 
schemes for exciting harangue, co-operation? 



24 A LAtfoK CATECHISM 

Response. This is not a mere scheme for excitement. 
It is an earnest response, by an oppressed laboring 
class, to a new proposition which affords them a ray 
of hope. It is as much co-operation of the poor to ob- 
tain, by self help, the several necessaries of life, such 
as employment, homes, eatables, fuel, clothing and med- 
icines, as the almost perfectly similar co-operations of 
England. 

Delegate. English co-operation consists of social so- 
cieties. They are peaceful and inoffensive ; while your 
movements are political. 

Response. But remember, we are in America, 

where no class is recognized. Social co-operation in- 
volves the same principles that political co-operation does. 
It is through this social, political union, that Americans 
must arrive at self supply. We have vainly tried, and 
are trying, to establish the social system of co-opera- 
tion as in Europe ; but there being no guaranty to 
the workingmen by the government, that this co-ope- 
ration shall endure, or remain solvent, and responsible 
to its creditors, it falls an easy prey to dishonest mem- 
bers. Besides this, the country is so large, and the la- 
boring class so nomadic, or migratory, that nearly as 
many rogues join in the hopes of getting a chance to 
fleece innocents, as genuine, and solid members. The 
society having once been deceived, becomes fickle and 
dies of discouragement. Add this to the influences 
brought to bear by your trading class, who now con- 
trol these necessaries of life, and exert their strength 
against co-operation, and you have the principal cause 
of failure that seems to follow every attempt of Amer- 
ican Social Combination for self help. There is one other 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY 25 

reason that must not be overlooked. The extreme free- 
dom of our institutions renders every person a sovereign 
of him, or herself. In Europe there is a sort of recognized 
class. Any effort to set up a co-operative concern on a 
social basis, however sound the principle may be, is, in 
America, received with coldness by the workingman, on 
the ground that it suggests compulsory fraternization. 
The trade union works, in principle, quite the reverse ; for 
that species of combination is based upon a sort of de- 
mand, in which the idea of sovereignty is uppermost. As 
long as co-operation for furnishing the people means of 
existence, is based upon helpless social combination, where- 
by the member has no positive guarantee from his own 
organization, or from Congress, or State Legislatures, that 
his funds are safe from embezzlers, and that his enter- 
prise is sure, just so long is it logically true, that he 
will refrain from supporting this otherwise promising 
means of relief. These objections to co-operation, a few 
years ago would have seemed untrue, and perhaps ab- 
surd ; but unhappy experience on every hand, proves 
them too correct. 

Chairman. Yet this interference of any political gov- 
ernment, for the means of existence of your half of the 
population, is an interference, directly subversive of the 
very business, and means of support, of our half of the 
population. It is a direct threat ; and an attack ujDon 
us, who now furnish your supplies. 

Remark. Indirectly it bears its suggestiveness ; but 

it makes war upon nobody. Many working and useful 
people whom no industry can afford to lose, have died 
from starvation, during the last few years, m this country. 
The competitive scheme for their supply upon which your 



26 A LABOR CATECHISM 

class depend for support, failed to furnish them means of 
sustenance. They starved ! It is not enough for humanity 
to weep. Humanity has proved, amidst tears, to have 
done little but nurture charity, and its concomitants of 
degrading soup houses, and humiliating asylums. All 
this, under your system, which has impoverished us, and 
aggrandized yon. 

Supposing now, these suffering toilers on the verge 
of starvation, because without profitable employ, were 
to combine with one another, with Trade Unions, and 
communities, and under competent exponents and ad- 
visers, should form themselves into a political power 
so strong, that at the elections they place in office tried 
men of their own class, pledged to enact laws, so as to 
legally effect the establishment, in the city of New 
York, Boston, or elsewhere, of a Bureau of Labor, and 
provision supply. Would that not be co-operation ? 

Chairman. Of whom do you propose this Bureau of 
supply shall purchase its articles ? 

Answer. Of you ; or anybody, who w T ili sell sup- 
plies of the best quality and at the cheapest rates. 
But it is not to be supposed that any broker is to 
realize a fortune. Co-operation and speculation are 
strangers. The success of the social co-operations of 
England, has always been in proportion to their db 
sence from speculation. Nothing can be more hateful to 
a co-operative enterprise, than individual speculations. 
It is just as feasible, in a political, municipal govern- 
ment, like New- York, or Chicago, to attempt to fur- 
nish a supply of dry goods, eatables, fuel and medi- 
cines, to its citizens, as it is, for a social establishment 
at Rochdale, with eight thousand members, to furnish 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 27 

the same, to half the population of that city. Years of 
experience prove that this science of direct transaction 
is a truly promising departure from old usages. 

Delegate. There appears a vein of artfulness, running 
in your argument. You seem to wish us to infer that 
European co operation is not only similar, but almost 
identical with this crazy, eleemosynary proposition of the 
workingmen that depends entirely for its success upon the 
shrewdness of the politicians in power. 

Answer. There are several answers to make to 
your remark. 

First . You seem not to recognize that the poor, starv- 
ing founders of that immortal enterprise in the north 
of England, were often waited upon by just such dele- 
gations as your honorable body ; and that they were 
jeered at, by those who, for many years made Toad 
Lane the mock of Lancashire and Yorkshire. The at- 
tempt to establish a co-operative Society on the social, 
that is to say non- political basis, was treated by the 
shopkeepers, and their friends with every kind of insult; 
and for many years there was scarcely a newspaper in 
the land that did not systematically ply its cant and 
jibe, until the poor experimenters forgot that it was cru- 
el to be tabooed, or calumnious to be belied. 

Secondly. You do not recognize that this same cal- 
umny on the part of the shop-keepers, whose long-time 
powder was thus threatened by the new system, was, 
and is yet, resorted to in every part of Europe, or where- 
ever co-operation has exhibited itself. 

Thirdly. You do not recognize that co-operation in 
many parts of England, is absorbing a large percent- 
age of the inhabitants ; that it is becoming an institution ; 



28 A LABOR CATECHISM 

and in all probability, will soon have to be upheld by the 
State instead of the social government. Mr. John Stuart 
Mill had the shrewdness to foresee this when he made the 
expression : 

" I cannot deny that which is proved by the success of 
Co-operation in the north of England; nor that the future 
of Political Economy hangs upon Co-operation; and you 
may imagine a time when the Co-operative idea will be so 
common and prevailing a thing, that it will be endorsed 
by Government, and end in superseding the competitive 
system, entirely." 

Delegate. Then the American workingmen propose 
to commence by a political Party of their own, that shall 
create, on the political basis, a branch of government to 
control the sale of the groceries, dry goods, fuel, and 
medicines, which we now furnish. All this they propose 
to do, without even the experience of the social co-oper- 
ators of Europe! 

Answer. The American people are amply prepared 
for it. The workingmen's affair is simply a question of 
Slavery. Theoretically, our political slavery was swept 
away by the War of the Revolution ; and later, our chat- 
tel slavery, afterwards political, was swept away by the 
War of the Rebellion. These experiences prepared us for 
an attack upon the still more subtle Wages Slavery; 
which must be swept away by co-operation. In this coun- 
try, this last swoop must be made by political power, 
like both the preceding forms ; because the evil is gener- 
al; and because Americans, by reason of the peculiarity 
of their institutions, cannot deal with matters affecting 
the interests of the majorities, in a small way. It has 
been found not only dangerous, but disastrous; for 
reasons heretofore described. The wages slavery of the 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY 29 

Europeans, is identical with the wages slavery of the 
Americans; but the methods of conducting the war 
against it, are different. There, this method must be 
social, that is, non-political; because the people are not 
universally allowed the political, or votive franchise. 

Those who most need these home provisions which 
are supplied by the co-operative store, are, of course, 
the poorest, who are not allowed to vote at the great 
elections. But in the little co-operative government, 
which they find must be intensely strict and severe, they 
are allowed the votive franchise. It is the intense love 
in mankind, of this ennobling franchise, that stimulates 
the co-operators. But our people are accustomed, in the 
liberty of their citizenship, to use this franchise at the 
great elections; and it is no honor for them to amuse, 
or trouble themselves with the affairs of smaller govern- 
ment. Hence; if this greater government neglects to 
provide for the home provision of citizens ; if the Gen- 
eral, State, and Municipal Government do not assume 
control, and become purveyors for the people, then, these 
majorities must remain forever at the mercy of your 
competing purveyorship. Granted that co-operation is the 
only means, by which working people can obtain their 
supplies without the "round-about," "change hands," 
competitive system, and it is easily proved, that direct, 
"live and let live" deal, is the legitimate function of a 
republican government. 

Delegate. Admitting that your workingmen's pro- 
ject, of cheap family purveyance, may possibly be prac- 
ticable in future ages, yet we cannot see in it, anything 
but the wildest vagaries; and we know by business ex- 
periences of our own, that the very first experiment in it 



30 A LABOR CATECHISM. 

will lead to chfios. Your proposition is revolutionary. 
You propose to create a political power, and with that 
power, to force upon a vast municipality, like New York 
or Philadelphia, so immense a business as the marker, 
dry goods, fuel, and medicine supply; without once con- 
sidering that in doing so, you are turning us, who have 
fed, clothed, warmed and doctored you long and faith- 
fully, out into the world, perhaps penniless, and with 
our business ruined, in old age when it is too late to 
learn another. This may look very upright to you ; but 
w T e look at the matter fiom another point of view. We 
are disposed, moreover, to look at it from a standpoint 
of your own good. We warn you that this is a direct 
revolution. 

Response. So is the successful co-operation of En- 
gland, a direct revolution. 

Delegate. In taking such a distribution of these 

goods upon yourselves, you create a void and confusion 
in the methods of transacting business ! 

Answer. Do not your own stores remain ? And 
is any man deprived of the right of buying of you and 
paying your prices, for a hundred years to come, if he 
wishes to do so? 

Delegate. You destroy the long studied, and prac- 
tically learned functions of a great business economy, 
before you have reared up, even the business discipline, 
to say nothing of the Officers, by which the new method 
is to be transacted. 

Answer. This kind of argument is all very plaus- 
ible and persuasive, and deserves to be thoroughly con- 
sidered. But the people remember very well, when the 
American colonies were suddenly converted, by a severe 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 31 

political contest, from a dependency to a free common- 
wealth, that although the attempt involved worse rev- 
olution than this you lament, they were found to be thor- 
oughly prepared for the change ; and neither this peo- 
ple, nor the human race at large, have ever regretted 
it. Your objection finds complete rebuttal again, in the 
more recent event of the great Pro-Slavery Rebellion. 
A great many people were plunged into consternation. 
Emancipation was proclaimed before any preparations 
were made for a new order of things. The abolition 
of chattel slavery was proclaimed in a day ■ And in a 
few short months it became a fact. Yet the country 
out-lived it all ; nnd great as the change was, involving 
the destiny of millions, the confiscation of properties, 
the overturning of systems, and the creation of a new 
and instructive page in history, yet the first swell of 
time has launched us into the exercise of a new po- 
litical economy ; and all goes smoothly again. But if 
history at home is not sufficient to convince you of 
a falacy in your objection, you need but look at the lit- 
tle decree, which in France, instantaneously revolution- 
ized the system of weights and measures. On the eve- 
ning of one day, the old system was in full vogue. 
On the morning cf the next, it was a punishable of- 
fence to use any other than the new. Yet in a week 
everybody was pleased with the change. In Japan, and 
China, mighty revolutions are going on, from the old, 
barbarous systems, to the more convenient ones of mod- 
ern science ; and almost without a ripple of political dis- 
cord. Now all these great and sudden changes, which in- 
volve the destinies of the human race, have been effect- 
ed by governments, and are political ; because, anything 






32 A LABOR CATECHISM 



decided by political action is supposed to be decided by 
the consent of the majorities; or, at least, by the decree 
of those, in whom the majorities acquiesce, and have 
confidence. There is no appeal from this decision. It 
is final. But if it be a mere petty decision, like that of 
a social co operative scheme, it is laughed at by one, ob- 
stinately upheld by another, tried and found wanting 
by another, by another proved a success, and betwixt 
the wranglings of indecision, it is about sure, in this coun- 
try to fail ; while the old, one-sided, and advantage-tak- 
ing system of furnishing supplies, continues. 

Chairman. Can you give us any details as to your 
proposed method of substituting your so called political 
management, for the present system of supply? 

Answer. We are too actively engrossed in the pre- 
paratory work of organization, and general discussion of 
the great whole, to be able to attend to details. Your 
very natural question is asked several years too soon. 
There are, however, several points upon which we are 
agreed. All Officers, entrusted with the management of 
this business must be elected. Workingmen have been 
badly misled by the appointing system ; and they are 
learning to agree upon this one point: They want no 
more of it. 

Chairman. Will not the system tend to destroy 
the Trade Unions? 

Answer. On the contrary. In this political co-op- 

eration, the trades Union assumes the functions of the 
co-operative society. The Trades Unions, or rather the 
central council of Trades Unions, composed of their del- 
egates, discovers any errors and frauds that may lurk in 
the system; and is thus enabled to bring in all griev- 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 33 

ances, and to demand their correction. If they be not 
speedily corrected, new Officers must be elected to fill 
the places of those who prove incompetent. The hon- 
esty therefore, with which the supply of the whole peo- 
ple is conducted, will in this manner, prove the incen- 
tive of wise voting. Wise voting is thus forced by the 
household needs, discussion and practice, upon every man 
and woman. 

There is no chance for corruptionists in the system; 
because, if the people find their clothes, their table pro- 
visions, their coal, and medicines, come too high, they 
begin to clamor about it. They agitate. They hold 
indignation meetings. They take their grievance be- 
fore their central councils. They take it to their own 
hearth and home. The irregularity is first discovered 
by the house-keeper ; who is first to bring her suspi- 
cions of knavery to the attention of her husband. The 
detective proclivities of every newspaper finds its no- 
blest function, its harvest and heaven in it. Political 
Economy in this system becomes alike, the poor man's, 
and the rich man's economy. This is the first budding 
of the true, honest, earnest, just, and humanity-saving 
Political Economy. 

Inquiry. On what other points have you determined 
that may come under the catpgory of Details ? 

Axswep,. It is safe to conjecture that the outlines 
of the system may consist as follows: 

First : An Elected Mayor, or Municipal Governor. 
Second : An elected Common Council. 
Third : The Division of the City or Community, 
wherever it may be, into a certain number of Dis- 
tricts. 



34 A LABOR CATECHISM 

Fourth: A Great Central Provision Depot, with Ilail- 
Road communication, and Telegraph Lines. 

Fifth : A Bureau of Fluctuations. 

Sixth: An Official Bulletin, containing a price-cur- 
rent for each week, and Principles of the system. 

Seventh : A system of telegraphy, by which the 
cook, the housewife, and the sick patient, may, for one 
cent, send an order for what they want, and receive 
the package required, — the payment for the package 
being given at the Telegraph Office, at the quoted 
price. 

Eighth: The Delivery; conducted as follows: — 
First: There is a central market, into which the whole- 
sale buyers send the goods. Second: In this market 
is a general Telegraph Office. Third : Radiating in dif- 
ferent directions from this market, and among the peo- 
ple, at convenient points, are hundreds of Sub-Stations, 
connecting by Telegraph, with the General Office. Fourth : 
A Telegraph Boy, or Girl, at ever} office. Fifth : The 
Delivery Service, with Head Quarters at the general 
Telegraph Office. This Delivery of goods may be done 
by horse or steam wagons. All the telegraph Offices 
are open eight hours each day ; and the expedition of 
the wagons, is at least once a day ; or more, if the 
people desire. This expedition of the goods is made 
regularly, and at known intervals, and through known 
and appointed routes. The manner of enjoying advan- 
tages of this system is as follows: Each house is furnish- 
ed with the Bulletin containing a price list, Any one 
wishing a market bill has only to consult the price list, 
and from it, make out a list on paper of the articles 
required ; and with this go to the nearest Telegraph 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 35 

Station, pass in ths order, the address, and the money 
for the goods. This order is then dispatched to the 
Central Bureau, with the address; and the provisions 
thus ordered, are delivered at the house, by the first 
delivery wagon. 

These are some of the rough outlines. The subse- 
quent, practical details, might show any further venture 
of ours, in relation to operations of a practical kind, and 
their application, to be unsafe. 

Delegate. Do you consider that the Government 
Postal Department acts as an example to be patterned 
after ? 

Answer. In many respects. The postal system 
offers the same incentive to the people, to study, and 
to require honesty in its administration. It is, like 
this supply system, a service that comes right home to 
every man, woman and child. Like the supply service, 
it depends upon the cheapness with which it transacts 
its business. Like the supply service, it enters into 
legislation, and depends upon the political intelligence 
of the people for its success. Like the supply service, 
it depends upon celerity and certainly, in its evolutions. 
But the Postal Service has many bad elements. The 
great principle involved in it, is badly contaminated by 
the contract system. It is political, only in the merest 
nominal form. Contractors use it as an instrument where- 
with to degrade political action. As all the Officers of 
the Postal Service are appointed, they conspire to secure 
the repetition of the terms of their superiors, who ap- 
pointed them. These appointed office holders, however 
honest their intentions when they began, tend to be- 
come, on account of temptations that beset their office, 



36 A LABOR CATECHISM 

the meanest of tricksters. They allow manhood to be 
trailed in the dust for the sake of keeping their posi- 
tions, aud thus, securing the emoluments of a contract. 
The theory is this : When a new Administration comes 
into power, a new Post Master is appointed. This man 
finds it to his political advantage, to secure the appoint- 
ment of such subordinates as are surest to wield an in- 
fluence toward his reappointment at the close of his term. 
The administrative ability, therefore, of his subordinates, 
is not so much consulted, as the power they can ex- 
ert in maintaining him. If the people should elect these 
subordinates, would they not vote for administrative a- 
bility ? The Post Master, then, naturally chooses pol- 
iticians as Ids subordinates, who are versed in all the 
mysteries and trickery of bribery, ballot stuffing, and con- 
tract jobbery; and who often know, or care the least 
about attending to the people's business. Not so in the 
elective system where the people themselves, do the ap- 
pointing. The appointing system, has proved the bane 
of our republican institutions. It is full of subtlety and 
intrigue; is as insidious as treason itself; and must not 
be allow r ed to enter into this scheme of economic sup- 

piy- 

There is nothing about the Postal system that works 
badly, except this habit of jobbing its work to private 
individuals and corporations, known as the contract sys- 
tem. The people are finding out, through the abuses 
and annual deficits, that involve them in debt, that this 
system of contracting their work out to labor brokers, 
is pernicious in a high degree; and must be supplanted 
by government Railroads, Telegraphs, and other means, 
which shall do this work for them through the direct or 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 37 

co-operative process ; and without the intermediaries at 
all. Furthermore, all employes should be hired by the 
year, or day; and not by the quantity, or piece; be- 
cause the latter holds the seeds of competism. Tie 
principles on which this new political, co-operative 
home supply is based, are, therefore, directly anti-mo- 
nopolistic. The Officers are elected by the people, at fit- 
ting periods; and all men and women engaged in the 
service under them, are to be paid by the year. The 
books are kept by law; open to investigation and cen- 
sure. An annual report must be officially made ; and 
the various articles of dry goods, groceries, fuels and 
medicines, must be furnished to the people at their min- 
imum cost. Like the co-operative stores of England, 
they must be of the first class only; and the country, 
far and wide, must be searched for the best, and the 
cheapest. 

It is here, again, that the present competitive system 
of supply, is practicing the grossest outrages upon the 
people. It is conducted by individuals, for individuals. 
But the most lamentable phase, is, that it is not uni- 
versal, but partial. The grocers themselves, need, of 
course, pay no more for their own provisions than the 
cost prices. All the well-to-do people, if they have any 
eye to economy, can buy their provisions at some ad- 
vantage; more or less. That is to say, they do not pay 
the full retail prices : they get them less. It is only 
the working majorities ; the poor, who have no advan- 
tages of leisure, or of mutual reciprocity, or of pres- 
tige, who must pay these bills of extortionate price. 
It is they who, for want of combination and wisdom, 
are forced to enrich this powerful, numerous, well com- 



38 A LABOR CATECHISM 

bined, and better educated class of intermediary dealers 
which your Delegation represents ; And it is these poor 
people, made poorer, in proportion as you are made 
richer, who have determined, at last, and after long 
ages of hunger and deprivation, to attempt this plan 
of co-operation for self supply, which you very natu- 
rally deplore. 

Delegate. This scheme may look beautiful on 

paper ; but before you accomplish anything, you must 
expect our opposition ; and that of all the class in sym- 
pathy with us, which is very numerous and powerful. 

Response. Powerful only through wealth and preju- 
dice. Numerous only in the cities and towns. The pro- 
letariat, or non-favored class are in the majority every- 
where ; — even in the great centres of congregated labor, 
like New York, or Manchester; but they are especially 
in the majority in the country. 

Delegate. What! Do you expect to be heard, or 
to be other than scouted by the Farmers' organizations ? 

Answer. Not until they have studied their own in- 
terests more thoroughly. Until recently, there has al- 
ways been too strong a tendency, of all people, to re- 
gard our movements as something disreputable. Fools 
look upon us with pity. The fact is, the cause of the 
slavery of working people is attributable to their own 
stupid acquiescence in the logic of their chains. The 
farmers, taken as a class, are worse imposed upon, if any- 
thing, than the mechanics. They are just beginning 
to see great advantages in combination. But in order 
to see its full advantages, they must lay aside their 
prejudices, against what they imagine to be disreputable, 
and learn to pity less. In short, there is no permanent 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 30 

and complete relief for them, except in this co oper- 
ation, with mechanics and laborers, of the cities. 
The two classes combined in this Political Co-operation 
can, in a few years, sweep away all kinds of mercenary 
opposition, by dint of Political Party. 

Delegate. Will you enlighten us with further de- 
tails of your methods ? 

Answer. At the great centres, say New York, 

Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, and other cities, a central 
Bureau of supplies is created by the Commissioners, or 
Purveyors of the city, who are elected. Attached to this 
central Depot are all the modern arrangements of tel- 
egraphy. 

Let us suppose, that a Central Depot is stationed, say 
at the old Washington Market; New York City. Then, 
in each of the wards of New York, Brooklyn, and en- 
vironing towns, are little telegraph stations. Teams con- 
nect from the great central depot, with the people, who 
thus receive their supplies through a government Rail- 
Road and water communication, with the farmers them- 
selves in all parts of the country. This system binds 
producers and consumers together, with no chance for 
monopoly. 

A 'Board of Purveyors, or Cammissioners of Supply, 
is elected annually ; whose duty it is, to inspect all ar- 
ticles, keep down rings, permit none but the best, to en- 
ter the market, buy directly from the best supply sources, 
and keep the prices of the provisions of each week ad- 
vertised ahead ; so that house-keepers, may have only to 
consult the Saturday's paper containing the official price- 
list of articles, for the ensuing week. At all convenient 
points, telegraph stations connect with these numerous 



40 A LABOR CATECHISM 

centres. Any one wanting a beef-steak, or other re- 
freshment, has only to step out to the telegraph station, 
deposit the amount, as advertised, for the article requir- 
ed, and go home. When the hour of expedition arrives, 
the porter is at the door, with the package. The fea- 
sibility, beauty and cheapness, of this system, are self-np- 
parant. By it, the people rid themselves of poisons 
that now infect, more or less, nearly everything we 
consume. By it, the old English and French co-oper- 
ation, is introduced practically, only in the political way, 
through the genuineness of every article bought. By 
it, the prices may be abated from five, to five hun- 
dred per-cent; and the present freebooters in our mar- 
ket system, are forced to relinquish their strong hold, 
where they have long and mercilessly prowled upon 
the defenceless. 

Any one * doubting the practicability of this system, 
has only to carefully study the similar evolutions of the 
Steam Fire Engine Department; the only blur upon the 
analogy, being the fact that the Fire- extinguishing De- 
partment, is a trine more in the interest of the capital- 
ists, than of the non-property holders ; since houses, 
stores, churches, — even streets, and cities themselves, 
are property of a comparatively few individuals; and their 
numbers are few in comparison with the masses who 
tenant them. The co-operation for safety from fires^ 
therefore, acts intensely in the interest of everybody ; but 
especially, in the interest of these comparatively few 
owners ; while that of the Municipal Market, is more in 
the direct interest of the poorest class or those who 
are now too helpless, to avoid the exorbitant market 
prices that keep them poor. Just in proportion, then, 



OF POLITCAL ECONOMY. 41 

as the easier class are able to avoid these high prices 
by purchasing in large quantities, watching the market, 
eliminating petty rings, and utilizing their commodious 
cellars, which the poor cannot have, in such a propor- 
tion, do these well-to-do dealers seek to perpetuate the 
system which enriches their own class, or those in sym- 
pathy with them, by impoverishing their proletarian 
neighbors. 

The Fire Department is a complete co-operative or- 
ganization of a class of citizens. It is political. Why ? 
Because it involves too large an area of the social 
fabric, to be merely social. The Fire Department is too 
immense, and too important, to be contracted out. No 
junto of contractors can have the Fire Department. The 
intimate home interests of too many person?, are at 
stake. So the people themselves take it, and operate 
it, in their own sovereign interests, at cost; and the 
perfect success which has crowned the enterprise, shows 
the wisdom of the people. It is a successful, politico- 
co-operative enterprise, of the people. The Post Office 
is another. The Water Board is another. The school 
system is another. Their purity depends upon the ab- 
sence of brokers or contractors, among them. They are 
too numerous to mention. 

Now in the face of all these exquisite specimens of 
popular co-operation, as applied to specific purposes, how 
long must the people be wronged by a diseased, and 
chronic system of supply ? How long must their food, 
clothing, fuel and medicines, be doled out to them, by 
profit-making persons, operating in the dark, concocting 
bargains, as purveyors for the defenceless masses, who 
are chained too low, by their ignorance, and poverty, to 



42 A LABOR CATECHISM 

be dangerous; and binding yearly, the thongs' of desti- 
tution and infatuate slavery around them ? How long 
must this last, in the dazzle of such an enlightened age 
as this, when the people have no better excuse for their 
miseries, than apathy and ignorance? A little political 
organization of the truly useful classes ; a little imita- 
tion of these magnificent examples, whose very splendor 
mocks them ; a little wholesome combination, of inde- 
pendent work, in the direction of self-help, would sweep 
away the shackles from their limbs, the cobwebs from 
their vision, the lethargy from their nerves, and launch 
them out upon a field of co-operative economy, redun- 
dant in manhood and gladness. 

Delegate. We are here to assure you that we 
have no fear of the progress of your Utopian system, 
for generations to come. The press bases its success 
upon the opinion of society. The press rules. The public 
have no opinion whatever, of your affair. It is as un- 
intelligible to the public as it is obscure. The Press 
wants money;-- -a thing which we possess. While we 
can organize a pool, and have the means of aproach- 
ing, and dictating to the press, through our subventions, 
you will be wrangling with each other, incapable of put- 
ting confidence in your own managers, and too poor to 
hire manngers from our ranks, to carry your business 
to a successful, financial issue. 

Answer. The politico- co-operative plan may be par- 
adoxical, but it is far from being Utopian. That it de- 
pends upon the influence of the press, exerted in its 
favor, no one can deny. Neither shall we attempt to 
deny that the press has too often sold its honor to 
monopolies, who secretJy organize to enslave and de- 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 43 

grade the people. This is the mortal ignis fatuus, that 
degenerates the press, while ever degrading the people. 
But there lingers yet, in man, much that is noble ; and 
fortunately, this element of honor, too much unemploy- 
ed hitherto, is seeking its exponent in the press. The 
newspaper makes a doubly sad mistake in perfidously 
sacrificing honor; sad in the fact that it degrades and 
demoralizes its inner conscience ; sad in the fact, that 
it falsifies the conditions upon which humanity depend 
for happiness. The history of the newspaper shows that 
notwithstanding the temporary advantages, sometimes 
derived from influence-gifts and political subsidies, by far 
the most successful newspapers are those that energet- 
ically take the part of the common people. In the pub- 
lic school it is the duty of the newspaper, to expose 
every evil, great or small, that exists. So in political af- 
fairs, it is its duty to bring all defaulters to account. 
The people invariably buy such papers. Such papers 
get the largest circulation. The subject matter of such 
papers being motived in purity, the tone of their col- 
umns becomes spicy. A proclivity to act the part of 
the detective, grows in the editors and reporters of its 
staff. The people love to read the revelations of the de- 
tective. They want news; and if anything is going on, 
nobody has a better right to know it than the public. 
To sift out truth and lay it bare before the eyes of the 
whole people, in all its sickly phases, and amid all its 
ghastly surroundings, is the true function of the news- 
paper; and those sheets that yield to bribery, though 
they may seem to thrive for a time, are doubly doomed 
liars; in that they palm off falsehood rather than truth 
for the people, calling it news, thus demoralizing 



44 A LABOR CATECHISM 

public opinion, and they lie to their own consciences, 
thus demoralizing themselves. 

Delegate. How can the newspaper come to the 
rescue of a system which few candid persons can sub- 
scribe to ? Tt would be death to any newspaper enter- 
prise to attempt to foist an idea upon the people, that 
cannot be comprehended by the average man. 

Response. The press has an extraordinary idiosyncra- 
cy, or a peculiar belief, in regard to its " average man." It 
is well enough to truckle to mental middlings, even at 
the expense of manhood ; for the sake of maintaining a 
filled purse; but not at the expense of common sense. 
That is going too far. The elements of success are plain- 
ly visible in every phase of Politico-co-operation. All 
the people want is a clear, plain explanation. Tliese 
people are in the majority over the venders of the day. 
They are the larger part of the newspaper-reading pub- 
lic. If the feasability of this plan with all its argu- 
ments, accompanied by diagrams, were plainly and bold- 
ly set forth by newspapers, as points of the current news, 
like any interesting invention, it would find support in 
the favorable opinion of the public. It is the custom 
of the newspaper to devote money and space on all im- 
portant inventions. Should a discovery of a motive 
pow T er be made, that were better than any now in use, 
no matter how many steam engine manufacturers it 
might threaten, or or how many millions of organized, 
and operating capital, it might bankrupt, or how many 
thousands of employes it might deprive of labor, the 
press would nevertheless, take an active interest in the 
discovery ; and it is equally the duty of the press, not- 
withstanding this possibility of a revolution of things, 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 45 

among the market dealers of a city, to take an equally 
active interest, in any new and good system of distri- 
buting provisions among the people. Let the people 
organize in clubs, in the different communities, and 
boldly maintain Politico-Co-operation, and the press will 
publish the news. 

Chairman. Not alone the press, and the most re- 
spectable business concerns, upheld by public opinion 
will be against you, but also the entire orthodox Church, 
which includes a respectable majority of the people. 

Answer. It is the duty of the Church, and all 
other great organizations, to contribute their share in 
all movements lor the benefit of man. The Church, es- 
pecially, ought to aid in the development of a good 
method of provisioning the people ; because it is demo- 
cratic. The Church claims to be democratic; since it 
seeks to admit, and provide for the welfare of all, with- 
out regard to race, color, sex, or condition. It is, there- 
fore, just the organization that should be foremost in 
an effort to relieve poor people, and place them under 
the influence of ?ngels, rather than of devils. 

Delegate. Religion has always proved itself out 
of place, when tampering with the temporal affairs of 
people. The Church is an organization with an exclu- 
sively spiritual object. 

Answer. True, it so claims to be ; but souls have 
some sympathy and business connection with our bodies, 
more material. To be religious, is to have the soul soft- 
ened into love for living mankind. How can a man 
learn to love his neighbor as himself, when his means 
of existence, set him in ghnstly antagonism with his 
neighbor? It is not enough, for a dozen, or a hundred 



46 A LABOR CATECHISM 

well to do persons, to be able to co-operate for their 
own selfish interests. We want advantages opened for 
the poorest of tbe poor. The very poorest are those 
who most need charity, the boasted virtue of religion; 
yet the Church, in giving them no material aid, leaves 
them in the deaths of every misery. ISTot having means, 
they linger in squalor and rags; a condition, too profane 
to admit of the education of emotions, or the desire to 
enter the carpeted halls, or sit upon the cushioned seats 
of church edifices. They are out of place there. Thou- 
sands of people, naturally intelligent enough, die every 
year, for want of fruits, which in our seaboard cities 
can be had by the whole cargo, for one quarter the 
money they are sold for, by our market dealers on the 
day after their arrival. There is wanted a practical 
religion; one of whose tenets shall be to afford the 
needy sufferers, the means of bringing such aliment 
within their reach. Souls and consciences are always in 
a state of rebellion, ' so long as they are girdled in, by 
disease, poverty, ignorance, and other seeds of crime, 
Politico-Co-operation, as a government economy, w T ould 
save humanity, giving people, in mass, the means of sav- 
ing themselves from the ravenous wolf of need. Igno- 
rance and suffering are the initial animus of blasphemy 
and crime. Let the Christian begin right ; and show his 
charity, in practical earnest, or the critical majority, look- 
in or at the havoc of unabated sin, will continue to sneer 
him clown, as a hypocrite. Keligion is assimilated with 
purity and development. How can a man live purely 
without the practical means ? Religion means goodness. 
How can you expect this, in the toils of squalor and 
rags ? The mistake is, that religion refuses to touch the 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 47 

Labor Question. In truth, it stands in inexpressible 
need of the practical appliances which characterize suc- 
cessful business. You cannot soften a desperado's heart, 
until you smoothen the approaches to it. To provide 
these means of distributing food at cost prices, and of 
furnishing people with fresh oranges, lemons, apples and 
other fruits, and delicacies, direct from the ships, and of 
purchasing them direct, by the cargo, is to repeat Christ's 
practical benevolence, in providing bread for a multitude. 
But what killed Him is the fact that He was not in 
the interest of speculators, who now hold a monopoly 
over His Church. How can people get time to elevate 
themselves to a disposition to obey the mandates of 
Christ, a lowly workingman, in a community, like New 
York, Brooklyn, Jersey City and environs, which are sum- 
mer after summer, rotting them with disease ? Eemove 
the causes of desease. The River Hudson, called one of 
the most beautiful in the world, wafts on its slow waters, 
millions of tons of malaria-breeding offal, past this great 
community every year. Horses, cattle, hogs, sheep, dogs, 
cats, rats and even human beings, in the sickening pu- 
trescence of every conceivable state of decomposition. 
The sewerage of great cities, and populous towns, rot- 
ting reekings from a thousand hamlets putrefying excre- 
ment, blood and offal from a hundred abattoirs, and fish- 
shambles, are vomited forth from great sewer-mains, into 
the mouth of this beautiful river, making its waters doub- 
ly brackish with their foul disintegration ; — poison, whose 
noxious emanations, floating on the inbound breezes, are 
swallowed into the stench abhorring luno-s of the poor. 
The rich and wiser class, can escape to the mountains, 
and the waters, where the air is sweet. It is the poor, 



48 A LABOR CATECHISM 

and the thus defiled, whom it is religion's duty to purify, 
who are abandoned, for want of wisdom and means of 
escape, to all the ghastly summer epidemics and conta- 
gions. Men and women of the mire, blaspheme God, and 
hate both God and man, when under the torture of dis- 
eases. The remedy must come, in the removal of the 
carrion ; and this seems too much like work for the Church 
in easy opulence. 

Yet the application of Politico-Co-operation, would 
soon open men's eyes to a great, and double economy. 
This very offal, so fearfully destructive to humanity, when 
left to putrefy in the stagnating eddies of our rivers, is 
of great value to farms and gardens ; and the chemical 
process is by no means wanting, whereby to convert it 
into a fertilizer equal to the richest guano. In Paris, and 
other cities of the east, large sums are paid to city treas- 
uries, by companies, for the mere privilege of sweeping 
streets; and the cleanliness of the streets of Paris, is 
renowned. But there is no justice, even in selling the 
work out to companies ; for the cities could do this work 
direct. The filth of our streets and rivers, would be worth 
millions of dollars annually, to the city treasuries, if it 
were converted into manures for fertilizing gardens and 
farms; and it is a shame, that such resources of disease 
should be allowed to remain, without either practical or 
moral protest from Churches, or boards of public works. 
The alimentation of the inhabitants of cities, as well as 
the work of keeping them healthy, should he preformed 
by the people in common. 

Delegate. Do you propose to start this system 
in your social co-operations? 

Answer. Certainly. Any council, or club of co- 



OF POLITCAL ECONOMY. 49 

operators can start it. A dozen men and women organ- 
ize. After selecting a nook, in winch to safely put their 
goods, — say the basement of a residence of one of the 
members, using the parlor floor as a hall to meet in, and 
partake weekly of the business, and social enjoyments, — 
purchasing and auditing committees are created, to be- 
gin the work. The goods are sold to members, who 
have trade cards or credentials. Bills of purchase, and 
accounts of sale must be regularly, and thoroughly au- 
dited and balanced, and reported to the council. This 
becomes the Head Centre. Similar associations may ex- 
ist around, it, too far away for families to come for 
goods; The Telegraph system, when the organizations 
become strong enough, does away with every dificulty. 
All goods, and sales, are procured and audited by the 
head committee. When the system grows too large to 
be merely social, it will take the political form, like the 
Fire Department, the Water Boards or Public Schools 
of cities. 



CHAPTER II. 
THE IRRESPONSIBLE POOR. 



Visit with the Outcasts, Unfortunates, Felons, 
and Tramps. 

Wandeeer. We are told that there is in store for 
us, a means, by which we, the so-called " irresponsible 
poor," may obtain plenty of that which we all desire ; 
but which is so hard to obtain, viz: work. A guaran- 
ty of it, and a decent compensation. We represent a 
class of people, who are said to infest the country, rath- 
er than live in it. We are looked upon as loathsome 
enemies, and treated as such. The only habitations sup- 
plied us by your society, or government, are poor houses, 
and prisons. Such is our condition by nature, and by cir- 
cumstance. We do not come, to hear repeated against 
us, the world's worn-out complaints. We are just what 
we are; — the out-laws of society, — and ever have been. 
Nothing can cure our case but work, without degrada- 
tion. If we must suffer the latter, we prefer to degrade 






52 A LABOR CATECHISM 



ourselves, and enjoy the benefits of it, rather than be 
degraded by employers. There is a certain enjoyment in 
our degradation, and we prefer to have it, rather than 
be subjugated to others. 

Observation. The poor house must become the rich 
house. That only, can cure your case. The government 
should furnish us all an asylum. Why should you be 
furnished with a home, at the public expense, and we 
left out in the cold? What makes the poor house life 
a humiliation and a shame, is the contempt that attach- 
es to its accommodations, and surroundings. Many a rich 
house is less lavishly funded, and actually poorer than 
the poor house. Society is not managed by the people, 
but by a few individuals; and they, in addition to being 
poor managers, have stamped a curse upon all those, 
whose turn of genius, and peculiar aptitudes, render them 
incompetent to manage for themselves. 

Wanderer. Instead of providing us many honor- 

ed work- shops, we are provided an occasional un honor- 
ed one. But we do manage for ourselves. If nature has 
adapted us for anything, it is for this ; and we are fol- 
lowed by your society, from which we are outcasts, be- 
cause we have this independence to strike for ourselves. 
We possess adaptiveness, each of us, to his, or her pe- 
culiar sort of business. The tramp among us, has both 
ability and independence. Turned out of work, by no 
matter what cause, he has too much enterprise to sink 
into slavering mendicancy. He does not hold out the 
common beggar's hand. Should a war occur, — which is 
his constant hope, — he is the first to enlist and fight ; 
for he longs for occupation. In times of profound peace, 
he wanders in search of employment ; and begs, or de- 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 53 

j 
mands, -or gets by his wits, that which he cannot get 
by pillage; for like the plebeian of old, he belongs to the 
class for whom society makes no provision ; and has not 
even a hearth, or sacred fire, to worship at. And fur- 
ther; like the plebeian, his increasing numbers, and bel- 
ligerent spirit are likely to gain the priority, soma day, 
over those who now fail to recognize his right to live. 
What is true of the wandering tramp, is, in many re- 
spects, true of the worse degraded and downtrodden 
class of abandons. Can it be said of them, that they 
would, not accept and prefer honorable positions, at 
which to earn a livelihood ? The imputation heaped 
upon them, that they are indolent, is entirely incon- 
sistant with truth. You will observe this, when you 
consider, that the labor they actually undergo is far 
more tedious, and wearing than the labor of earning 
a living respectably. It is not true if you say that 
these outcasts have not characteristics within them, which 
are valuable, if the world in which they live, were 
leniently and economically adjusted. Nor is it true that 
sue!) people are naturally heartless and brutal. 

ObseeVxVtiox. We are willing to admit that what 
you say in defense of your people, is mostly true. 
But do you not think, that both on your pnrt and 
that of the world, there is an unnecessary bitterness? 
What society is mostly in need of, is the knowledge, 
and adoption, of a system, by which all these good 
points, you extol, in the people you represent, m.iy be 
employed and paid, in a mnnner that shall be profit- 
able, to all the parties. There is need of mo^e mutual 
association, and less individualism in the manngement 
of these talents. Under the individualist system, this 



54 A LABOR CATECHISM 

cannot be brought about; because the individual crav- 
ings, for profit, keep rife the spirit of competition ; and 
where people strive to out-do each other, there is an- 
tagonism and rivality. The country stands in great need 
of enormous, and splendid work houses, sufficiently nu- 
merous to accommodate us all ; rather than the present 
few degrading ones. In large work shops, working 
people do not rank by the merits of their antecedents. 
In this country, the question is seldom asked a mechan- 
ic, or laborer, where do you hail from, or what have 
you clone ? If you are a good, faithful hand, it is suffi- 
cient for the purposes of the business. We mean, by 
this, that there exists little, or no aristocracy in the work- 
shop. In the petty work-houses, now operated by gov- 
ernment, this question is asked ; because misdemeanor, 
or poverty, is the suspected cause of a person being 
there. But if the people had a work-shop, conducted on 
an immense scale, where there were a demand for em- 
ployes in large numbers, no such questions would be 
asked; because the people's asylum, would then be merg- 
ed into the people's manufactory. It would furnish both 
employment, and thus correct misdemeanor. It would be 
proudly yours, and be at your bidding. Besides, it would 
be perfectly respectable. If all the people had such an 
asylum to work in, we should avail ourselves of the op- 
portunity, as frequently as you; and class you on an e- 
qual footing. Governments must learn to provide them 
for us. This will cure the social evil. 

Wanderer. It is useless to waste time in think- 
ing about such an elysium as you paint, in lieu of the 
poor-house and penetentiary work-shops. There are too 
many rich rulers of the nation's industries, who operate 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 55 

production on the profit system, to admit of any such 
co-operation of the people for self employment and sup- 

Pty- 

Opinion. Not at all. It is true, that competitive 

labor exceeds the co-operative, at present ; but the same 
■was the case in regard to the public schools, a hundred 
years ago. For many years, people of the easy class 
thought it was compromising their dignity to send their 
children to the public school, to be educated free. It 
looked like putting them on the town. The institu- 
tion, nevertheless, prospered ; because it was maintain- 
ed, as it were, by endowment of this well-to-do class 
themselves, who actually paid for it, through taxes, im- 
posed by government. 

It was constantly against their pecuniary interest, 
to cavil with their pride ; and the conviction became 
doubly strong, when they saw that by sending their 
children to select schools, they were compelled to pay 
twice for their instruction. Sober reflection is now 
rapidly prevailing against prejudice ; and the private, or 
select schools are dying out. The public school opens 
its door free to all ; and it affords them great oppor- 
tunities, benefiting alike, rich and poor, developing 
national intellect, and leveling social grades, which after 
all, are found to be nothing but an idea. 

But the difference is infinately greater between the 
poor-house, or penetentiary work-shop, and the Public 
School, than between the Select, and Public School. 
A government poor-house or county-house is an object 
of disgust and humiliation. It infects a neighborhood 
for miles around it. Society, which always has a small 
percentage of indigent, sickly demented, and otherwise 



56 A LABOR CATECHISM 

disqualified persons, huddles them together in the common 
poor-house; and low, and distasteiul beings are thus forced 
into contact, Obscenity and profanity meet and greet. 
Bad habits grow little better, in contact with disrepute. 
They learn to recognize misfortune which the world's 
censure and sneers charge them with. Their health may 
be cared for, but the stamp of obloquy fastens upon their 
names. They are in the poor-house, and this is their dis- 
grace. What can be expected of such a government 
Institution but a moral stench, infecting society, miles 
around it ? There is no mixture, or variety. Its own 
dreary sameness stagnates; and its natural elements are 
far from sweet. 

The greater government work-shop, obviates all this 
difficulty, by affording impartial employment for any 
member of society; mixing all together; — the ungifted, 
as helpers of the gifted — and rewarding all; not with 
contempt to one, and honor to another, — but each, ac- 
cording to actual productive merit. It thus entirely 
leaves relative social merit out of question and cavil, 
and recognizes all, as citizens. Beggars and tramps 
would gladly avail themselves of such a work-shop; 
whereas, they dread the poor-house. The result would 
save society much of the disgusting, and demoralizing 
work of intrusive beggars, and marauding tramps. 

Wanderer. Education, and its methods are one 
thing ; means of existence, another. They are two very 
different things. 

Response. Yes; practically, they are different; but 
they are identical, in principle. The public school is cer- 
tainly a hundred years in advance of the public work- 
shop. But the public school is as superior to the pene- 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 57 

tentiary, and poor-house-school, as the public work- shop 
will be, to the penetentiary and the county work- 
house. It is as much the duty of society, to guarantee 
you labor, where you may all be independent and hap- 
py, as it is to furnish you schools where you may re- 
ceive instruction. 

Wanderer. You have passed law T s compelling us 
who are of a certain age, to attend school ; knowing 
very well, that we have no means to do so. We have 
no time to go to school. We must pick rags, search 
ash barrels, pick up coals, coke and wood, black boots, 
sell papers, grind organs, court paramours, juggle, 
prowl, pilfer, and otherwise profit off our own wits, 
and others' hen-roosts. All the time is occupied in 
getting a bare living ; how Can we go to school ? 

Confession. Your question is the same, that dis- 
covered the discrepency in this law of compulsory edu- 
cation. You are quite correct. You cannot go to school. 
You must live by some labor ; and if the law r that would 
force you to attend the public school, tails to provide 
you a place to work, so that you may live, it makes a 
stupid mistake. It is an incompatibility, which can only 
be rectified by another Institution, that shall provide a 
supply of labor by government. It is clear that you 
must be guaranteed a comfortable home, and work, of 
some kind, during a certain portion of the day. The law 
of compulsory education ought to provide labor, as a ne- 
cessity, for your class; else, it can never go fully, into 
force; and this fact is, of itself, sufficiently strong, to 
cause, sooner or later, the establishment of government 
employment among the people. Compulsory Education, 
and Government Work-shops go hand in hand. 



58 A LABOR CATECHISM 

Wanderer. It would indeed, be a nappy change, 
from our present miserable condition, to be thus favora- 
bly benefited, each with a home; to have respectable work 
furnished us; to be looked upon by our fellow men, no 
longer, with contempt and fear, but in the sweet spir- 
it of equality and friendship. Furnish the outcasts; — 
the tramps, the unfortunates, and all others, for whom 
society now makes no provision ; — furnish us all, a safe, 
and steady place to work, where our peculiar constitu- 
tional adaptabilities may be practically applied; put us 
where our neglected minds, abused bodies, and broken 
hearts, shall be trained, trimmed and healed ; and let us 
mingle with the good, and profit by their counsel; in 
short, give to the neglected and despised, this noble asy- 
lum of labor, that by an impartial and just government, 
is guaranteed us, by right of our inherited citizenship, 
and you will rid the world of many an evil doer, and il- 
luminate human society, in places now shadowed by the 
darkness and sin of despair. 

Remark. It should be understood that the social 

element must enter largely into the methods of labor. It 
cannot be denied that co-operation contains something of 
this social principle. But in a system of government em- 
ployment, where manufactories are provided/or the people, 
hy the people themselves, the longed-for economical in- 
dependence, of the working portion of society, is readily 
realized. Yours is a peculiar class of people, who, of them- 
selves, think little about bringing such an arangement in- 
to the world. It must be done by their aid. They will 
not do it themselves; but when it is done, they will ac- 
cept and sustain it. A respectable position guaranteed a 
girl, — no matter what her habits might previously have 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 59 

been, — secures her respectability and independence. In it, 
she can always be respected. She need not expect to get 
this position, in a joint stock company, because her claim 
of citizenship, which is all she possesses, has no force. 
She cannot expect anything of an individual concern, be- 
cause the espionage of individualism will pass censorship 
upon her former life. But her shake in citizenship, 
dignifies her claim to a permanent position, in an estab- 
lishment, in the land of her birth. Here only can she 
demand labor by right of her inheritance. The story of 
individual industries, is as old as history. They have ap- 
pallingly failed in your grievous case. They must be 
supplanted by those of mutual care. 

Wanderer. Will you give us an idea of the grounds 
upon which a government industry should be based ? 

Kesponse. Your question is one that requires plain 
language in its answer. The laws of co-operation apply 
nearly the same in production, and distribution. Gov- 
ernments, however, have had comparatively little experi- 
ence in pure production, whether of agriculture or man- 
ufacture. We will suggest one of pure government man- 
ufacture. Among the numerous staple articles that lack 
a thorough and economical administration, in the method 
of production, is bread. There is a surprising waste of 
time, money, and labor, in its manufacture. In the city 
of New York there are a thousand bread bakeries. Each 
is an individual concern, possessing its own little adminis- 
tration. Each has its owner, who oversees, and its work 
men, its salesmen, and porters. There is no system, re- 
garding the territory that each is to supply. Consequent- 
ly, wagons are kept running across each other's routes, 
and the ground is gone over many times, each day, be- 



60 A LABOR CATECHISM 

fore the distribution is made; thus incurring much loss 
of time, and waste of labor, A careful computation on 
this competitive interfering with neighbors' routes, reveals 
enormous losses, on the part of the people, in the econ- 
omy of their effort, just in this one article of bread. 
The flour, necessary to supply these bakeries, is never 
shipped, in a methodical manner, to them, from one ca- 
nal boat, train, or ship. It is first allowed to go through, 
the hands of brokers, or commission-men ; each one of 
whom, sends it to his particular customers. The smaller 
and more numerous these bakeries, and the more isola- 
ted their business administrations, the better are the op- 
portunities, offered, for adulterating the flour, and deceiv- 
ing in weight. The bakers have all the advantage ; the 
people none. Besides this, many bakers can organize 
themselves, into a protective union, and in a mutual and 
secret way, frame rules for the regulation of prices, and 
thus substitute monopoly for competition ; and while peo- 
ple are made to believe they are getting their bread 
at low prices, they are actually paying enormously for 
a badly adulterated article. 

Wanderer. What plan do you propose, for pre- 
venting such wrongs ? 

Answer. In the cities of Lyons, Lausanne, Hali- 
fax, and Rochdale, in Europe, there are co-operative 
bakeries, which are owned by a large number of per- 
sons. These bakeries supply, not only the families of 
the member, but also, all the people who desire to buy 
of them. Now the members, or owners, of the co-op- 
erative bakery, have no desire to make money. Their 
only desire is to get pure, wholesome bread, at cost 
price. They hire their own bakers, and consequently 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 61 

are an administration of themselves. They have found 
by a long experience, that the larger the average num- 
ber of loaves baked, the cheaper they can be pro- 
duced. They get them at cost. Nobody speculates on 
a pecuniary profit. They hire their own workmen, buy 
their own flour, employ no brokers, and eat unpoison- 
ecl bread. Besides this, they employ themselves. Now 
let us return to the New York bread bakeries. Sap- 
pose the people here, should erect a great bakery, suf- 
ficiently large to supply the whole city, from one sin- 
gle administration. In other words, suppose there were 
an immense bread baking establishment, in New Y^ork, 
which had capacity, for supplying all the people with 
bread, daily ; and that it were the property of the entire 
people, somewhat like the Fire Departments, the Water 
Works, and the Public Schools. Do you not see, that it 
would be co-operation of the citizens, for bread, the same 
as at Lyons, Bochdale and Lausanne? The difference 
is only in the comparative numbers; not in the princi- 

Now we know, that the Fire, and Police Departments 
furnish a great many situations for people having child- 
ren ; and that these children, are thus afforded means of 
attending our Public Schools. In law, parents are obliged 
to send their children to the Public School, in some states. 
Practically, however, many can do no such thing; because 
they are too poor. If they had work, and even a small 
recompense, the law might be observed. Many vagrant 
children like our poor little wanderers, of both sexes, our 
unfortunate girls, our uncultivated tramps, or those who 
become such, would, if the law enforced it, attend school 
and receive instruction ; thus ridding city and country of 






62 A LABOR CATECHISM 



much ignorance, and the attendant crimes and vices nat- 
ural to ignorance. But without the Public Industry, the 
Public School is unable to perform its true function; and 
the Law is necessarily a dead letter; — a miserable mock- 
ery. 

Wandeeek. Now you have touched the interesting 
point of our case. It is true, that nothing hut the com- 
pulsion of law, which opens up our opportunities, and 
as rigidly enforces their participation, can ever turn us 
from wickedness. Many believe we are horn to do evil ; 
but although some of us, as of yourselves, are born with 
evil minds, yet our ranks develop many good citizens ; 
and if we had these excellent opportunities, we might 
develop more. 

Remark. In theory, this law is right, in compel- 
ling your education. The city cannot afford, on grounds 
of political economy, to allow, either your ignorance, 
vagrancy, or disgrace. We have no moral right to go 
prowling in quest of things that do not belong to us; 
or to do that which is uncomely and pernicious. It is not 
just that people should live upon their wits; studying 
nothing but methods of advantage-getting. This rob- 
bing hen-roosts, and other pillage and this begging, fight- 
ing, tramping and decoying persons in the streets, of 
which you speak, is, intrinsically, pernicious, when re- 
duced to habit; no matter to what extent, your need- 
ful condition may excuse the oflense. We ought, all, 
to be allowed seme profitable work. The same Jaw that 
would compel you to attend the Public School, must 
break away from its own absurdities. It is a dead let- 
ter, because it is incompatible with circumstances. A bak- 
ery would employ thousands of people. They would be 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 63 

employed by the Board of Public Works w.hich has a 
direct communication with the Board of Public Instruc- 
tion. The law requires that children attend school. 
The officers of the law would no longer be baffled in 
enforcing it ; because they would have recourse to the 
Board of Public Works, in securing situations for pa- 
rents, who are now too poor to send their children to 
school. If the children have no parents, positions must 
be assigned them direct, during certain hours, each day. 
As it is, there are, unfortunately, no such positions. 
There is not a single Public Industry, to off-set a- 
gainst the Public School; — the very point wherein our 
political economy is lame. But the public bakery 
would supply some of this deficiency. It furnishes em- 
ployment for many thousands ; and it is a peculiar class 
of employment, that adapts itself to the capabilities of 
your particular people. The bakeries of this city, em- 
ploy boys during certain hours, each day, as porters, 
girls as clerks, men as bakers. With the exception of 
the latter, these are occupied only a part of the day. 
The remainder of the time, may be occupied m study, 
and rest. The demands of the law of Compulsory Ed- 
ucation would force the needy of your class, into these 
places, as naturally as the law of gravitation tills with 
air and water, the cavities of nature. 

Wanderer. Would not the result of such an in- 
dustry be to displace from their situations, large num- 
bers of needy persons who are already employed in the 
present baking industry of the city ? 

Answer. This is no more a question under consid- 
eration, than was the establishment of Co-operative Bak- 
eries at Lausanne, Lyons, and the cities of England. They 



64 A LABOR CATECHISM 

did it, because it became necessary; in order to secure 
pure bread at wholesale price. In this, they have suc- 
ceeded. At Lausanne, the Co-operative Bakery has act- 
ually reduced the price of bread in nearly all parts of 
the Canton Vaudois, and taught speculators never more 
to attempt to make wealth, out of profits on this most 
important and staple article of food, for rich and poor. 

Every one who knows the true extent of adulteration, 
and short weight, from which many people of America, 
are suffering in bread-stuffs, cannot fail to see that we 
have great need of a similar system here. If co-opera- 
tion cannot be applied, as at Lausanne, we must make 
this many-headed wrong, a subject of legislative enactr 
ment, and introduce the Government Bakery, as a Mu- 
nicipal accommodation for the people. 

Wanderer. Will not the establishment of all Gov- 
ernment Industries be so contrary to the present meth- 
ods of production and deal, that the competitive rul- 
ers will rise against us? 

Response. Wrong must sooner or later, give way 
to right. Individualism governed mankind, thousands 
of years before it was attacked by the old philosophers 
of Greece, who with all their powers were unable to break 
it down, because they were divided. This old individ- 
ualism was so exclusive, and so absolute, that no two 
estates or houses were permitted, even to join. They 
must, by both divine, and statute law, be separated from 
each other. All through those ages, harsh laws of pri- 
mogeniture prevailed, that excluded wills, and natural en- ' 
tailments; and the whole of this class to which we be- 
long. Before the beginning of our era, there were, at 
Rome, actually two nationalities of people; — the Patri- 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 65 

eians and the common people. The very touch of the 
latter, defiled the former. There was an aristocracy, of 
which the poor could not partake. Solon of Athens 
and Servius, of Home, were about the first of the real, 
Labor Reformers, among the Ancients, outside the se- 
cret Societies. Before the conflicts, carried on, by these 
men, the cruel religious laws made outcasts of daughters 
and younger sons. Homes were made sullen, forbidding 
fortresses, whose ceaseless fires were aglow, in the hon- 
or of some god of the particular patrimony of each house; 
and each succeeding inheritor of that aristocratic patrimo- 
ny, became, after death, that god. One will observe 
then, that, bad as is the condition of the human race 
to-day, we are much less shackled, than in those old ages 
of comparative superstition and ignorance. The father, 
and the first born son, only, were privileged ones, They 
owned everything, by license of religion, law and usage, all 
of which, they themselves controlled. All others, were 
unprovided for, except, by their own shrewdness, and 
what little they got, through charity. Comparatively, 
therefore, there were, in those times, many more peo- 
ple, of these predatory classes, than at the present time. 
During all those times, communistic organizations of in- 
sistence, formed from the aggrieved outcasts of your 
class, were constantly creating turmoils. There has al- 
ways been competition in society, and always will be, un- 
til it receives its death blow, by the institution of a sys- 
tem of l-ibor, wherein guaranteed employment, and just, 
and honorable compensation for all, shall be established by 
the people themselves. Little progress can be made tow- 
ard setting wrong right, until the masses of the people 
themselves, take their own grievances in hand, and de- 



66 A LABOR CATECHISM 

stroy the huge evil of competism. Competitors in pow- 
er are now, comparatively few; and they cannot holdout 
against a wise and well directed organization of the peo- 
ple. 

Wanderer. Do you claim that the employment of 
the people, by the government, is better for our own 
case, than the system adopted by the social communities, 
such as that at Oneida, and those of the shakers and 
others ? 

Answer. "No. It does not claim to reach so far. 
These communities you mention, are miniatures cf a far 
future state of society in which there shall be agreement 
among the people, on points of industry, religion, and 
social habits. They may be called microcosms, of a vast 
system, toward which this government employment may 
possibly lead, and eventually ultimate in. People are 
proving themselves, not only capable of furnishing mem- 
bers with constant employment, and plenty, but they al- 
so engross, some other things which the furnishing of 
labor to the people, by the government, may make it 
possible for people, as citizens, to do, by giving them 
freedom to act. Our labor party will render it possible 
for the people, as citizens, to step farther, by emanci- 
pating them from the bondage of want, in which you 
and many others, exist. No sensible person would do any- 
thing, to stifle the formation, or growth, of these com- 
munities. Such societies ought to augment in numbers, 
until every hill-side and valley, has its example. But it 
is clear, that if they ever become thus numerous, their 
votes will be turned toward the propagation of their 
principles, until they themselves, become a political pow- 
er, and seek the guaranty and endowment, of government, 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 67 

on a large scale, by means of legislation. But their sys- 
tem of equal compensations, covers too much ground. 
We cannot hope soon, to realize it. We are all in the 
great cauldron of competitive strife, where human socie- 
ty seems forever to be bubbling, sweating and suffering, 

Wanderer, Mention was made of a system of equal 
compensations. Has it been adopted by any asociations 
or any governments? 

Response. Certainly. It is in general use in the 
family. Because one child, of a family of many children, 
is so unfortunate as to be born a cripple, or to be de- 
prived of his physical, or mental powers, the just and hu- 
mane father does not think he should be deprived of the 
means of life. The unfortunate child, on the contrary, is 
often more beloved and better .provided for than the rest ; 
because of his misfortune. 

Wanderer. We can easily conceive of such a thing, 
in the private family, although it is seldom our own lot 
to be so treated. But what of* the rest? 

Answer. A Community, or an associatiow of co-op- 
erators, is, to some extent, conducted upon this family 
principle, of equal compensations. Now the main point 
upon which outside society fails, is exactly the point, 
where the family communism succeeds. We repeat, 
that it is too far, for us to reach at present. 

The idea, however, is as follows : We are becom- 
ing agreed, that air, land, aid water, are gifts of na- 
ture. They cost nothing, except so far as labor is ap- 
plied. Therefore, they should have no exchangeable val- 
ue. AH value attributable to them, in justice, is that 
which the hand of man has bestowed upon them, in 
form of Labor, They are gifts of nature; and free to 



68 A LABOR CATECHISM 

all, except where they are wrongfully misallottecl. There- 
fore ; if air, land and water, are gifts of nature, and cost 
nothing, so, also, the innocent genius, that makes A. a 
better accountant, B. a better blacksmith, C. a better 
machinist, D. a superior farmer, is a free gift of na- 
ture. It costs nothing. They were born with that 
gift. Now E. a- stouter man, having a larger family to 
support, and consequently more w T ants to supply, works 
by their side. To learn his trade, he has served a 
longer apprenticeship, and has worked more years. But 
he is outstripped by A. B. C. and D. who are endow- 
ed with a gift. By means of that gift of nature, they 
are adroit in workmanship. This gift cost them noth- 
ing. Its exercise is their pleasure, It is an unbought- 
en aptitude, which is their pride, their praise, their 
glory, their noblest recompense. Their bodies, perhaps, 
are smaller. They eat less, wear less, require less; but 
by dint of this gift of peculiar adaptivencss, which 
costs them nothing, they easily excel E. who is stout- 
er, eats more, needs more ; and v/ho, nngifted, labors 
harder, with an equally honest heart. The question be- 
fore the community, and the family, and that ought 
to be before the government, is this : if E. works as 
faithfully and needs more, is it just to pay him less? 
Or, let us take another case : A. is a scavenger. B. is 
a physician. A. works among the debris and the oiial. 
He cleans up the garbage. The sinks and the slummy 
places, in centre, and banlieue, are, by him, de-odor- 
ized and reij|pted. He is a better community physi- 
cian, than all the practitioners of the materia medica. 
Yet the world starves and spurns him. If he is will- 
ing and useful, ought he not to have enough? Ought 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 69 

he not to be educated, refined, loved, and socially priv- 
ileged, with the rest? Ought he not to have enough ? 
It is said, he has no capacity ; and therefore no claim. 
Yes he has. He posesses the valuable gift of faithful- 
ness; together with that most beneficent of gifts, humil- 
ity. He is adapted to usefulness, by humility, resigna- 
tion, un-ambition, absence of pride, that would disqual- 
ify B, or C, for this disagreeable task. How unjust then, 
it must be, for us, to disdain, and cheat this indis- 
pensable doctor, while we bow in honor to the physician 
who rides in a carriage, and exacts a heavy fee for 
that which is often of less value. Is it not clear from 
these illustrations, so often repeated in society, that the 
old egotism, resting upon assumed relative merit, con- 
st antly applied in the competitive system, and so uni- 
formly averse to the idea of equal compensations, is 
the very argument, which, backed by immemorial us- 
age, all the individualists, and their joint stock companies, 
and all the monopolists, ever have used, and are still 
using, as a means of getting superior material recompense 
called pay? 

Is it not this argument which, based upon a no less 
fickle and shifting foundation than received opinion, leaves 
the willing and naturally honest, but ungifted multitude, 
to freeze and starve? Is it not this one-sided, non-ccm- 
munity of recompense, that has ever fostered arrogance 
and forced crime ? These selfish instincts tend to throttle 
knowledge and development. There seems no possible 
method of adjusting this apparent incongruity, caused by 
the diversity of our aptitudes and capacities, except by a 
sweeping adoption of this apothegm, namely: — Justice 

DEMAXDS THAT WE WORK ALL FOE EACH, AND EACH FOH 



70 A LABOR CATECHISM 

all , and that we struggle for the adoption of equal 
compensations. There is no judging from an average 
of each workingman's capabilities. Neither is there sat- 
isfactory economy in the aged system of competitions. 
It is complex with disputes, rivalries, intrigues ; and prof- 
ligate in a concomitant, waste industry, — the great ad- 
vertising system. No community or co-operative socie- 
ty can afford this expense ; nor the enormous waste that 
attends these friction brakes in political economy. Sim- 
plicity, not complication, in an invention, is w T hat makes 
it a practical success. How can we Judge the exact 
relative worth of a producer ? Who can discriminate, 
under the intricacies of circumstance, of prejudice, of 
influence, of variety of relative grades, of advantages, 
and disadvantages, to which the mass of human genius 
and muscle, is subjected in the present apportionment 
of work and pay? Can an honest and wise public 
afford to be harrassed by the competition, the dissat- 
isfaction, the rival ity and tendency to intrigue, that fes- 
ter in an aggrieved and slighted spirit ? Is not the 
principle of equal compensation, which guarantees a 
sufficiency to all, the true leveller of class ? Are justice 
and equality compatible with class? 

Wanderer. Do you claim that this system of 

employing the people by the people themselves, will 
be better than the system adopted by the close as- 
sociations, whose governments have solved the problem 
of labor, and even that of socialism itself? 

Answer. There is a resemblance, These associ- 
ations are fore-runners of the vaster government. The 
idea of government employment in the one, seems al- 
most identical with that of the other. The well directed 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. ?1 

little community contains nearly the same elements, 
both in philosophy and practical detail, as the true em- 
pire of a wise and great people. Each works for its 
members, the citizens; and each realizes that which it 
works for. But the small close association, because it 
is small, realizes its ultimatum earlier. It is, however, 
the same perfection, which the greater government, pur- 
suing the same course, wall inevitably arrive at; with 
far better satisfaction as to personal freedom. The close 
associations are based, not only upon the idea of fur- 
nishing members with constant employment, and con- 
stant plenty, but they drink in, also, deeper sentiments, 
which the furnishing of labor to the people by self- 
government, makes it possible for members to do, by 
affording them freedom, economically. The small soci- 
ety, wisely managed, aubrds labor to every member. 
This labor is not excessive. The people have time 
to think. They agree in joint deal from year to year; 
and consequently become rich. They live, labor and 
enjoy, on a method of just compensation. With plenty, 
and some leisure, and the accumulations of experience, 
they are better prepared to put in practice the more 
subtle points of socialism than the outside world. They 
are a little government. They can better attempt the 
settlement of questions of mental culture, and even of 
race culture, than those in the midst of withering want 
and prejudice, such as rage in competitive society. In 
fact they have advantages which do not exist elsewhere. 
But the fact that the miniature governments are capa- 
ble of yielding independence and happiness to a few, 
does not p-event the growth of the same principle in 
the great community through the aid of a greater gov- 



12 A LArJuK CATECHISM 

ernment, on a greater scale. The small Community is 
strictly a government. It is a government by the peo- 
ple. So also a Republic is a government by the people. 
Its members possess property, in form of industries, schools 
buildings, institutions of pleasure, of profit, and a code of 
ethic?, in common. So, also, the citizens of a republic, 
own in common the schools, the institutions of legisla- 
tion, of jurisprudence, the Postal business, and many 
other things in common. If you ask why they do not 
own and control all business, the answer will be, that 
they are not yet as uniformly wise, as the people of 
the small community. 

Wanderer. You speak of the true Social Problem ; 
and mention the adoption of methods of race culture. 
We are interested here, because representatives of a class 
whose miseries are of ante-natal, more frequently than 
post-natal origin. We are outcasts from good society, 
because we are often the children of inebriate, or mal- 
formed, or vicious parents. We remember the dark al- 
leys where our infancy was passed; not the tapestried 
parlors of the opulent. Our females hover nightly on 
the gloomy corners. The dens they wander from, are 
wanting the luxuries, that cheer the more favored homes 
of cultivated people. What does your beautiful theory 
promise, that shall prevent the contaminating touch of 
these hidious dens of unchecked and vicious concupis- 
cence. Some of us live in promiscuous incest, the result 
of being forced together. We are crammed into squal- 
id abodes, which are made to abuse the theory of breed! 
ino- by making our social habits too prolific. Sheer pov- 
erty coaxes us into indiscriminate contact with one anoth- 
er; overfilling home with mortals, who, in turn, procre- 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 13 

ate their own bad traits, from one generation to another. 
Could society see its way clear to procure us labor and 
good influences, would it separate us from this too close 
contact, and mix us with the world ? 

Response. We hold that what is wrong must be cor- 
rected. With Kant, we say, that means must, at every 
hazard be furnished for righting wrong. If the Church, if 
the Schools and Colleges, if the social influences of Society, 
if the individual, can do nothing but fail, and forever suffer 
disgraceful and inglorious discomfiture, in their feeble ef- 
forts to correct such dismal wrongs, then must the People, 
as the federated units of nations, biand your wrongs into 
their Platform of Party and upon their Flags of liberty ; 
and hurl them into Parliaments and Legislatures, for cor- 
rection. If there is not enough strength in human mod- 
esty to recoil from, and revolt against such scurrilous and 
unsightly scenes, then must the people be incited to look at 
wretchedness from a view of Political Economy, and blazon 
the fact that neither yourselves, nor the world at large, can 
afford to tolerate social ulcers which both degrade and in- 
fect community with a death-rot. It is no way to correct 
these evils by proffering charitable pittances. The recipi- 
ents of such, learn to sneer at gift-givers; and regard gift- 
giving with the contempt it merits ; since it inculcates in- 
dolence by nurturing churlish expectancy. Squalor, grov- 
eling, packing, drunkenness, are reflections of indolence and 
ignorance. No nation of people can afford to permit the 
causes of your complaints ; much less the effects. No. 
Let us strike against evil; and urge a forthcoming remedy. 
The remedy lies in Labor. Labor will purchase your ad- 
mittance into the Public Schools ; and society, respecting 
you, will extend her hand of love and care. There are 



14: A LABOR CATECHISM 

gems in your ranks which need but to be thus cleansed 
and their crudeness rasped away, to sparkle among the 
radiant brilliants of intellect, and of man and womanhood. 
Neither city, state, or nation can afford to pay the costs 
entailed upon society by your condition. The natural con- 
sequence of want of instruction and development among the 
n on -propertied citizens, is helplessness. It cannot reasona- 
bly be expected that it should be otherwise. This state of 
depravity then, is calculable, and might have been foreseen 
and avoided. Society, calmly looking upon these blemishes, 
and suffering them, while noisomely imbibing infectious tor- 
ments from them, yet being furnished with means of preven- 
tion and cure, such as a pretentious church, a promising 
government, a world of exact sciences, nil under control, and 
doing nothing from cycle to cycle to prevent such blight, 
cannot but feel compunctions of guilt, mixed with its crown- 
ing shame and humiliation. 



CHAPTER HI. 
THE HYPOCRISIES OF COMPETITIVE DEAL. 



Conversation 
with a Merchant's Clerk. 

Clerk. We hear vague reports concerning a pro- 
posed new system of distributing goods; and it bas 
occured to us to inquire what the advantages are ; 
whether there need be as much perversion of morals 
of young clerks, or whether young people need to be 
thrown into so constant temptation as at present. It 
being a part of the clerk's qualifications to be a shrewd 
liar, and indeed the strongest requisite to secure him 
permanency in his situation, we should be very glad to 
know of any method that would render such habits 
unnecessary. 

Remark. There is a method which is calculated to 
obviate this evil of lying, cheating, and stealing ; but 
to introduce it in the place of present systems, is a 
very difficult affair. That, involves the formation and 
career of a vast political Party ; and a succession of 
battles and skirmishes, against a great, and vitiating 



76 A LABOR CATECHISM 

system of deal. This method proposed, consists of 
Community deal; wherein government, in the interests 
of all the people alike, takes the place of the two 
prevailing methods of competition and monopoly. 

Clerk. What difference is tliere between com- 
petition and monopoly ? 

Answer. Tliere is much difference. So much, 
that they cannot be compared together. A competi- 
tive trade is isolating ; and rather repels, than attracts 
others engaged in the same traffic. There is a strife 
among dealers as to which shall sell cheapest, and this 
strife or competition too often amounts to mutual hatred. 
Competition is as old as communities and is seen not only 
in all varieties of trade, but it exists in the spirit of peo- 
ple. It is competism that causes the sad and often dead- 
ly animosities that exist between nationalities. It is com- 
petism that keeps cities, colleges, manufactories aglow with 
strife. In a good sense, it makes an element of health in 
the literary attainments of scholars and is indispensable, 
as a heightener of all kinds of qualifications requisite to 
society. In. a bad sense, it is pernicious in promoting low 
strifes, like fighting, gambling and rivalry in deal. In a 
word, it appears from the most careful survey of the his- 
tory of competism, that it is a natural attribute in man ; 
which when applied in a bad sense, produces not only 
the thievery and falsehood among clerks, of which you 
complain, bnt also almost every kind of degrading result, 
from the carnage of warfare, down to the meanest brawl; 
but when applied in a good sense, it promotes a restless 
activity of the intellect, and results in inventions, discov- 
eries, and improvements in science, which are rapidly fit- 
ting the world for a new economy of Distribution, that 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 77 

will render prevarication and deceit no longer a qualifi- 
cation for the clerk. 

Monopoly, on the other hand, is a ring of merchants, or 
of manufacturers, or of miners, or whatsoever trade, com- 
bined to close in upon the people, and shut them out from 
competition. The clerk engaged in selling articles in a 
competitive store must demoralize himself by lying and 
using every art of dazzle and dissimulation, in order to 
flatter purchasers; and adroitly 'sell them a poor article, in- 
stead of a good one, so as to win and entice a larg- 
er number of visitors. The clerk in a monopoly, is e- 
qually demoralized ; because he must exhaust his gen- 
ius in inventing every kind of device, to make his cus- 
tomers believe it is fair deal, when, in reality it is ex- 
tortion. In either case, as a general rule, it demoralizes 
the clerk. It makes him the meanest species of thief; 
because it makes him steal for others instead of him- 
self. It makes him a confidence swindler, by profes- 
sion. It makes him a liar and an ingrate, by cheating 
his own society, often his own kindred. It makes him 
a hypocrite ; and the class legislation of his powerful 
masters, legalizes his hypocrisy. When Ave come to 
consider that this large class of society's victims, not 
only covers the clerks of retail and of wholesale deal, 
but that there yet remain on the category, all the clerks 
of manufacturing deal, and of transportation, — in fact 
all the clerks of both the competitive, and the monopo- 
listic systems, as well as the reckoners of their im- 
mense accountability — when we consider, that in these 
legalized hells of falsehood and hypocrisy, a large per- 
centage of our population — our best and noblest young 
men and women — are reared up and paid, and applaud- 



78 A LABOR CATECHISM 

ed, in ratio to their success in such deceit ; when we 
see all this, can we wonder that there is a spontaneous 
inclination, not only on the part of clerks, but also on 
the part of other working people, of scientists, of all lov- 
ers of truth, to rise up in power and blot it out of 
existence ? 

Clerk. If, in the competitive and monopoly sys- 
tems, there can be no hope of reform, and no cure for 
this evil which is making compulsory liars of clerks, and 
otherwise vitiating their morals, to what system must 
they look for reform? 

Answer. They must bend their energies toward the 
gradual establishment of a system of deal, that will re- 
quire the opposite qualifications, for a good clerk. The 
world needs a system of deal, that shall make people hon- 
est of necessity. People must study the character, and ap- 
plication of Co-operative deal. We must learn to deal with 
each other by direct approaches. Monopolists and com- 
petitors are the middlemen of deal. Demoralizing clerks, 
of which you speak, is only one of many pernicious results 
of their system. Society must learn to destroy the evil by 
dealing directly with its own membership, without aid of a 
third person. The only object ( other than common inter- 
est one feels in society ) which the broker of the world's 
deal has in view, is gain; exclusive individual profit. In co- 
operative deal, no thought of exclusively individual profi% 
can be entertained. A co-operative society never cheats it- 
self. Its clerks must not lie. In the world's deal, society 
allows itself to be cheated by the insidious intrigues of 
which you complain, for profit. Profit lies at the bottom 
of the evil. You must get down to the bottom and drag out 
this old cankering lust for profit, which fattens middlemen, 



OF POLITICAL EC02TOMY. 79 

and demoralizes you, and substitute it with a purer one that 
repels exclusively individual profit ; and deals with your- 
selves, at cost. Let this be done by your government; and 
you begin to feel the true incentive of citizenship. You 
then begin to feel what the use of a government is; and feel 
your first encouragement to honesty. 

Clerk. If the sale of dry goods should be assumed by 
the government, instead of the individual merchant, it would 
still have to employ clerks. These clerks would have to be 
superintended, and strictly too ; for if they were not expect- 
ed to steal for others, they might, unless guarded, inspire 
their present employers' love of profit, and practice deceit 
for themselves. Besides, who is going to guarantee the 
honesty of superintendents? Are not the oft repeated ex- 
posures of fraud, and other betrayals of trust, of our gov- 
ernment officials, sufficient to warrant the people in doubt- 
ing their capability to choose upright men, as superinten- 
dents of the sale of dry goods ? 

Answer. If the government assumes the sale of dry 
goods ; it will be for the majority of the people ; and the 
first principle involved in that sale is the obtaining of the 
best goods at least cost. The notion of profit does not en- 
ter here. So that if their first and all important object is to 
obtain genuine goods at low cost, their very next object 
and privilege is to find out and know what ihey have cost. 
This is the first great home duty of. a people. Having as- 
certained and made a record of the cost of goods in gener- 
al, they will very naturally inquire into the causes, if these 
goods are not sold them at cost. Do you not see that this 
investigation leads to a profound and respectable study of 
causes and effects, right in the little matters of the house- 
hold? Yet these little matters of the household, so very 



80 A LABOR CATECHISM 

long neglected, are after all, the subject of supreme impor- 
tance, in political economy. Now tell me how such im- 
portant but difficult matters can ever be adjusted while the 
sale of goods to the people, intimately interested, is given 
over to the caprices of competitive strife, or of the more 
sweeping monopoly; back of which there is no appeal; 
where the people have nothing to say, and no more power 
or control, than the most abject subjects of a monarchy in 
the East. 

Clerk. It, indeed, seems very clear, that people should 
look at this proposed change in distribution, as a matter of 
no second rate importance ; and once shown that they are 
really capable of constructing an efficient, distributive ser- 
vice under government, the same as that of the Postal ser- 
vice, or the distribution of water in cities, they will cer- 
tainly take action toward its establishment. But such a 
proposition involves revolution. It will seriously interfere 
with this profit incentive you speak of, which combines and 
makes formidable, the individual power of our present 
managers of distribution. This power, though perhaps 
numerically small, is immense in influence. It borrows its 
greatest strength from the usage of ages. It is therefore, 
acq^escid in, even by those whose sons and daughters are 
demoralized by it. It is a recognized system of our civ- 
ilization ; and though its outworkings are so pernicious as 
to vilify morals, and create and perpetuate the two great 
castes of wealth and poverty, the very parents of its thus 
demoralized victims, are, in a majority of cases, its strenu- 
ous supporters. Now, supposing it even to be true, that 
government, as an instrument of popular behest, were per- 
fectly competent to distribute the necessaries of life di- 
rect, that is, without any brokers of deal, or profit-paid 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 81 

service, through the management of the people's own chos- 
en supervisors ; do you suppose the people could be prevail- 
ed upon, to make such a gigantic attempt? 

Answer. Certainly. They will attempt anything, 

when once convinced that it is light. Of all tribunals, that 
of a great people is the least susceptible. Before them there 
is no dodging to please friends. They want unequivocal 
justice. They are a great while making up their minds 
what jnstice is ; and are incapable of determining, except 
through prolonged discussion and practical proof through 
scientific application. But they are convinced by successful 
specimens ; and the practicability of doing away with this 
profit, or fee pay, has been proved by co-operaiive exper- 
iments. Wherever the co-operation has been honestly 
and patiently tried, it has yielded precisely the results you 
seek. Even in America, where the fickleness of member- 
ship and sovereignty notions of the people, render these 
experiments precarious and short, lived, they have devel- 
oped this unmistakable tendency to do away with the fee 
offices and institute direct pay offices in their stead. But 
In Europe, especially in England, where no such objec- 
tions exist, they have already become powerful; and are 
making sweeping inroads upon the old system of trade, 
based upon exclusive profit to individuals. 

Clerk. Do you think the change cnn ever be 

brought about by simple co-operation, as in England ? 

Answer. No. There are many characteristic differ- 
ences between European, and American institutions. What 
Europeans can accomplish socially, Americans find most 
conformable to their habits, and institutions, to accomplish 
by political means. It is doubtless of little matter how it 
is done ; if it is done, and well done. It is evident that it 



82 A LABOR CATECHISM 

can only be accomplished in this country by working up 
the question on the various forces of experiment, necessi- 
ty, feasibility, and argument, until the people are forced to 
choose sides definitively. Then it will become a political 
Party ; and remain at the option of the voters, subject to 
their scrutiny. It will be shaken up by party newspapers, 
until the rule of an enlightened and awakened majority 
shall be thoroughly recognized. 

Clerk. But many enthusiasts, overlook the fact that 
even the most successful co-operative efforts — those of the 
North of England — have from the first, been in an almost 
constant wrangle with each other; and that many times they 
have been on the point of dissolution, and are not out of 
danger yet. It is even hinted that there is an effort on foot 
to secure the aid of government, or to fortify and consoli- 
date them by a species of absorption into the general gov- 
ernment. 

Answer. Your remark is, in theory, correct ; but you 
misunderstand the schooling effects of wrangling. The 
world has prehaps never learned so valuable a lesson as these 
wranglings of the Co-operators have taught. It is through 
the jargon of distrust, and a thousand other mutual contra- 
rieties to which maybe added many fierce personal crimi- 
nations and expulsions, that the ever jealous, watchful, but 
honest co-operators have fought down this lurking spirit of 
cheating, lying and money-getting, you complain of. For 
many years the treacherous emissaries of the old system of 
profit paid deal, plied their tricks with a view to disrupt the 
organizations. In hundreds of cases they succeeded as we 
succeed in this republic. But every failure was a lesson of 
experience to the indefatigable organizers of England, 
who have at last turned the tide of the great battle in favor 



OF POLTICAL ECONOMY. S3 

of themselves ; so that within a half century, the practi- 
cal application of the idea of straight deal, without the fee 
profit or commissioners' service has been obtained, with 
certain modifications. In some parts, this new system 
has absorbed from ten to seventy per cent of the popula- 
tion. Its effect has been, to completely route the incent- 
ive to lie, cheat, or steal ; making the labor of a clerk pure 
and innocent. The store becomes the common properly 
of the people. The people are thus the owners instead of 
the individual competitor or the monopolist, whose only 
object is to sell for more than he gave, and in that way, 
which naturally inspires and urges him into prevarication 
and deceit, make a wealth of profit, exclusively to him- 
self. Co-operation works out the reverse of this principle. 
It cannot make profit out of itself, because it can realize 
no advantages by profit. Its object is to buy cheap and 
sell cheap. Sell for the sake of furnishing its owners, the 
people, with articles at cost. Sell for the sake of conven- 
ient interchange ; not for the sake of accumulating profit. 
The clerk who handles the goods has no object in being 
dishonest. It is this that has already signalized co-opera- 
tion and made it the nursery of honorable deal. Indeed 
in the heartless desert of competitive deal, and still later, its 
all-destroying conspiracy in form of monopoly whose sick- 
ening blight corrupts the entire moral atmosphere of human 
interchange, co-operation is the green Oasis; a speck indeed 
compared with the boundless wastes within, but full of the 
balmy verdure of innocence and goodness. Upright deal, 
and honest manliness, with frankness and cheer, take the 
place of the shy approach and obsequious servility, and 
cheat of the money-getter and his cronies. 

Then as to its being absorbed by the government that is 



84 A LABOR CATECHISM 

the most wholesome sign of our age. English Co-operation 
has only to conquer one half of the competitive system, and 
thus obtain a mere majority, to secure its permanent adop- 
tion by the government. Deal is that moment out of the 
hands of middlemen. Deal comes under the control of the 
people: because the people choose and commission the per- 
sons who are to supervise it the same as they now do in the 
Co-operative Store. Every citizen becomes an equally in- 
terested party. It is a vast joint stock company, whose mem- 
bers are the citizens ; all the people. Can a man cheat him- 
self? lie to, or deceive himself? extort profits out of himself? 
The collective interests of millions are the individual inter- 
ests of one. All our government services to the people are 
standing proof of the earnest, honest innocence of the co- 
operative incentive. It is seen in the Postal service, with 
its impartial precision in distributing the mails at cost. It 
is seen in the Fire Department with its exquisite, and mar- 
velous effectiveness, in saving, from the devouring element, 
all property without grudge or favor. It is seen, in the im- 
partial politeness toward all, at the peoples' Parks; the cost 
of distributing abundance of water in cities; the democratical 
and impartial instruction of children, at the Public Schools. 
These are specimens of co-operation in which every citizen, 
without exception, feels an equal incentive to watchfulness, 
and control. 

Clerk. You seem to have lost sight of the fact, that 
the great English co-operative stores exact a profit. 

Answer. Not at all. There is, by collective agree- 
ment; a certain fluctuating percentage taken over and above 
costs, from the receipts, for all articles. This percentage is 
held by the society, as a fund. A provision makes it option- 
al with all buyers, to withdraw this percentage ; but most 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 85 

of the members allow it to accumulate. This is their fund ; 
their exchequer. They use it as an instrument of levelism. 
With this fund they, in common, build homes, school houses 
splendid central and branch store buildings, debating halls, 
committee, and reading rooms, and other common decora- 
tions that have made co-operation world renowned. 

None of these improvements are made by the arbitary de- 
cision of a man, or even a counsel of men. The people 
themselves discuss and decide the most important meas- 
ures ; and instruct their executive centres to act according- 
ly. Co-operation is thus, for the people and of the people ; 
and on the whole, the people haye shown themselves slow, 
but wiser than individuals ever have been, in creating and 
adjusting the means of existence and happiness. The gov- 
ernment, when it undertakes a co-operative enterprise, imi- 
tates the government of the co-operation. The people elect 
a council or legislature, who do as they are bidden. Fail- 
ure to do right, creates the same wrangling and crimination 
we have seen in co- opera: ion ; and by this means we slowly 
make improvements ; until, as in the Fire and Postal De- 
partments, the people are quite satisfied. The money used 
for such enterprises, is, as in the co-operation of England, 
invariably the money of the people, taken in the same man- 
ner, only by vote of the people at the great Elections, and 
out of the public exchequer; and if it is not as wise as the 
best English co-operations, it is because the people are not 
as active in guarding their interests. It is because they trust 
too much to individuals and irresponsible counsel, and job 
their interests out, to intermediary persons. 

It is easy to see, therefore, that there is no analogy be- 
tween the percentage of profit on retail, over wholesale pri- 
ces in the co-operative store, which goes back to the mem- 



86 A LABOR CATECHISM 

ber who issued it, and the privilege of profit, which ac- 
crues to the outside competitive aud monopoly deal. The 
one, is, in truth, the reverse of the other. For in the 
first case, every member in the co-operation is a merchant; 
in the second, only one person, or the individuals of one 
company, are merchants. In the one, there is a sympathy, 
compulsory on the part of each, for the other, which a- 
mounts to pure, mutual care. In the other, the feeling 
is arbitrary, and utterly, and mutually selfish. With the 
one, the profits go back principally to the mutual excheq- 
uer, for the improvement of the members 1 common pos- 
sessions ; in the other, the profits fall into the hand of an in- 
dividual, and furnish him the means with which, if he be 
unkind, to take advantage of those who have enriched him. 
In the co-operation, the capitalized fund becomes an instru- 
ment of levelism. In the outside store, it becomes the cen- 
tral force of individualism or oligarchy. Co-operation pays 
the clerk for his labor, in delivering goods to their owners. 
It takes the cost money, and a voted percentage ; nothing 
more. The merchant pays his clerk who sells and delivers 
goods, for every sort of successful wiles, of allurement, of af- 
fected platitude, of lying and subtlety, so far as is compat- 
ible with the inflated and depraved sense of the people; 
and the simple reason of all this difference lies in the inher- 
ent impossibility in either system to do differently, under 
the circumstances. 

Clerk, You mentioned that the system of profit mak- 
ing, so bad for the morals of cl®rks, resembles the fee pay- 
ment for services rendered to certain public officers. 

Response. It does. It also resembles the contract 

system; in which the people as thoughtlessly job their pro- 
ductive industries to work-brokers, in place of taking them 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, 87 

into their own hands. The wealth owner is a member of a 
class. Legislation is, in this country, largely in the interest 
of class. The wealth owner, because his business makes him 
rich and respected, is proud of his class; while the toiler, 
because his business degrades him, ignores class. Conse- 
quently the wealth owner is stimulated to organize and pro- 
cure class legislation for himself and becomes the darling of 
the law, while the poor toiler, ashamed of the drudgery and. 
the compulsory deceit that degrade him, though numeri- 
cally in the majority, makes no effort to procure legislation 
for his class, and becomes the outcast of the law. The law 
recognizes fees. The fee is a legalized price for a profes- 
sional or official service. The law as distinctly recognizes 
the profit of a merchant, as a fee. The successful merchants 
are, therefore, as much the darlings of the law as the feed 
officials of government. But the great government is, never- 
theless, the property of the people who have seen to the ex- 
tent their blinded eyes will permit, the fallacy of fee offices; 
find strong efforts are on foot to abolish fee offices, entirely. 
When this is done, the payment of a service will have to be 
direct from the people to their employes ; and class legisla- 
tion receives a blow ; because the people, in this ca<=e, are 
themselves empowered to fix the salaries of their employes. 
Profit in all cases, as at present viiiated by desire to make 
money, means "get all you can." Fees, where they are 
limited at all, are limited only upon the same principle. 

Both are long-time usages, partialized by legislation in 
the interest of the clashes enriched by them. They both be- 
long to the same voluminous category that overflows the cup 
of the toilers' woes ; and the only sure method of removing 
the evil, is by a toilers' National Party, by force of which, 
to turn legislation in the interest of these uuhonorcd founda- 



88 A LABOR CATECHISM 

tions of national prosperity themselves; instead of fee offi- 
cers and profit speculators. Tins can only be done by 
direct government employ, — the surrender to the peo- 
ple, subject to their jealous watchfulness on the first incen- 
tive to citizenship, of the whole of the mercantile opera- 
tions of exchange; and the carefully guarded adjustment of 
them by the supervisory control cf the people's chosen a- 
gents; subject always, to their experience and their ever 
improving legislation, from year to year. 

Clerk. In what particular do you see the analogy you 
speak of, between the fee-profit and the contract sys- 
tems? 

Answer. Properly speaking the contract system be- 
longs more to the productive than to the distributive in- 
dustries; and therefore, not to a discussion on merchants 7 
profits and their demoralizing barters. But there are some 
departments in which the contract system, v/ith all its hid- 
ious and demoralizing falsehood and deception has invad- 
ed the world's distributive service. Among these may be 
mentioned the Post Office, 

Athough the Postal Service as conducted by govern- 
ment, has proved infinitely more able and satisfactory than 
any company the people ever employed to carry the mails, 
and has, within the remembrance of many who are now liv- 
ing, reduced the postage on a written communication from 
twenty five cents down to one cent, still we have not yet 
been able to shake off competism from our mail service. 

As a consequence, we find immense annual deficits in 
our Postal Bureau. The people, it is true, have the credit 
of conducting the Postal Department of government, and 
have by gradual legislation from year to year, corrected 
many abuses, assumed many duties, and reduced the Post- 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 89 

al tariffs until the poorest may derive the instructive ben- 
efits of correspondence. But they have not yet been a- 
ble to develop the work, sufficiently to do it themselves. 
They cannot yet see clearly enough to trust themselves. 
They must still submit much of it to contractors. Nobody 
knows better than these, the purse-inflating quiddity of 
public innocence. So the railroad owners continue to press, 
and the lobby, that modern conclavium of republicanism, 
still emits its effluvia of job-corruption, and all the demor- 
alizing, poison-pointed foils, of falsehood, faithlessness, 
simulation, and finally, of biased legislation, throttle the 
people's hopes, overwearying them to surrender rights be- 
longing to a majority. Labor, a natural right, is thus job- 
bed, or let out, to outside parties, to favor outside inter- 
ests, -while the people themselves, or a large portion of 
them, are left ignorant, and otherwise destitute of every 
means of associative employment. Great majorities see 
annual subsidies voted to such purveyors of their busi- 
ness yearly ; yet their work is poorly done. JNIany oth- 
er similar examples of this evil of partial, or individualist 
profit exist; proving, that there is an analogy between 
the mercantile job-letting, wherein the people give then- 
exchange service to the brokerage-party, and the contract 
system itself. If, then, the people, as a unity are able, 
to dispense with advantage the business of governing, of 
law making, of operating Government Bureaus, and great 
Boards of Public Works, Public Health, and other mat- 
ters of business activity, they need not fear to undertake 
the further task of administering a system of Buying and 
Selling, that will require less perversion of good morals a- 
mong their employes. 

Clerk. We have not thoroughly exhausted this sub- 



90 A LABOR CATECHISM 

ject, in its bearings upon the weight, as models, of our 
regal merchants. We see men of great ability, like the Gir- 
ards, the Peabodys, the Stewarts, applying indefatigable 
toil, amassing fortunes so immense that people seeing them- 
selves outstripped, shrink, in fear from them. Their ca- 
reer is so overs weeping, that the the timid world shud- 
ders ; while the followers of fashion, and those who are 
of more obsequious turn, are infatuated to idolatry ; and 
the moral atmosphere is soured, betwixt jealousy, peev- 
ishness and servility. By-and-by, the rich man dies; leav- 
ing to the astonished world, not only the rich lesson of 
his work, but also a noble legacy, in his property. We 
ask, if, on the whole, though he may have been pcnuri- 
ously business-like, he has not set a good example? 

Answek. Such men are, undoubtedly, doing good, in 
a manner of their own. On every hand we see, year by 
year, the methods of business administration, verging in 
a direction of frugalities. Great labor-saving instruments, 
that result from the energy of our workers, make it pos- 
sible for our inventive tact, to swoop business formulae 
into larger, and more comprehensive areas. Genius now- 
a-days, becomes the fulcrum over w T hich brain and hand 
labor has a leverage. Formerly, this was true, only of 
those born to position ; and this only happened, among 
those, whose material advantages, were most in unison 
with their natural advantages or heritage. Many of them 
distributed their gift of genius upon a low level; and so 
made bad use of their advantages. Inherited, or arrogat- 
ed rights of this kind are believed to be dying away. 
Free-born smartness is taking their place. Consequently, 
since genius will have sway, we have merchant princes, 
instead of princes; money kings, instead of kings; rail- 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 91 

road autocrats instead of emperors; Commonwealths in- 
stead of Empires. Phenomena like these, designate the 
difference betwen the self-made and the endowed fortune. 
Xow, the modern bent of free genius is, in the compet- 
itive world, to take advantage of the scientific appurten- 
ances in use, and thus enlarge those intellectual opportu- 
nities formerly curtailed for want of them. We see this 
in the great business enterprises of Stewart, Claflin, and 
Yanderbilt. They teach an invaluable lesson. Even if they 
extort undue value from their clerks, they have a certain 
sort of usefulness, as ushers, at the portals of a more hu- 
mane, and engrossing business method thnt may yet ab- 
sorb competitive methods into those of common interest; 
uprooting the competing system, upon which these men 
bui'd their fortune and renown. 

"When we lock at the immense capabilities of a single 
individual of genius, we ask whether there is not agree- 
ment enough, among all the geniuses of a whole people, 
providing their ultimate object be, in the end, realized, 
and their life ambitions equally satisfied, to join issues, 
as a Body Politic ; and carve for themselves, and for 
the people for whom they manifest so much death-bed 
solicitation, a new career of wealth-making and of wealth- 
distributing. This is the Question of Labor. Solve it, 
and you have overcome the source causes of your com- 
plaints. 



CHAPTER IV. 



MERITS OF THE LABOR CONFLICT 
BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY. 



Colloquy between- 

Members of a College Faculty, and an 

Advocate of the Labor Movement. 

Professor. There are few Colleges in the land, 
whose faculties and advanced students, do not feel a de- 
sire to encourage, in their literary and rhetorical Societies, 
as well as their Magazines, a large amount of radical 
thought. In how much do your theories of government 
employ conflict with religion ; or how far do they, in your 
opinion, project heresies against the established principles, 
upon which most of our Colleges are conducted ? 

Advocate. The people say they are enslaved; that 
the cause of their enslavement is bad management ; that 
their struggle is for Economical Emancipation; that bad 
management is the result of ignorance. Certainly, then, 



94 A LABOR CATECHISM 

the College which professes to teach wisdom, should, by 
all means, do its duty to the people ! 

Professor. It is not the duty of the College to 

undertake the education of those outside. Those inside 
are generally well provided for. Nevertheless there ap- 
pears a desire to discuss the question of integral educa- 
tion, which would, as you state-, abate the general ig- 
norance that has enslaved the working people and kept 
them impoverished. 

Response. This discussion is the first, and perhaps 

most necessary thing. It is of all other things most neces- 
sary that our high schools begin at once the discussion of 
new and launching points of political economy. They edu- 
cate the young man, and start him in life; and generally, 
the theme of thought inculcated, during the college life, is 
that which moulds his future career and builds life habits 
which a life-time cannot eradicate. 

Professor. Most college faculties are conservative. 

They are, at present, hesitating upon prudential grounds. 
Is it prudent, we ask, for us to entertain a line of discussion, 
that leads in opposite directions from rules of society alread- 
y established? 

Observation. There is nothing in the principle of 

Social Employment of the people, by the people, that con- 
flicts with any college duty. The idea is based upon Me- 
chanics', upon the adjustment of things, so that the great- 
est amount of production and distribution shall result, 
through Mechanical Economies, from the least possible a- % 
mount of time and effort. It seeks economical applications 
of machines, to the uses of the people. It might not yet 
have been raised, even to the dignity of a question, had not 
certain apt individuals, by a superior tact in management 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 95 

and acquisition, obtained the control of these inventions, 
and applied them to their individual uses; thus encroaching 
upon the people as a mass, by accumulating collossal for- 
tunes from an overplus that accrues from this partial or 
individual management of inventions, belonging, as the 
Problem of Labor hypothecates, to the Commonwealth. 

Professor. Will you give us an example ? Your prop- 
ositions are too vague and blind. Do not fear to state your 
question boldly. 

Remark. An example of this misallotment is seen in 
almost every great invention of recent date. Printing by 
types is old ; and consequently, has, through successive 
Stages, evolved from their control ; and is now rapidly 
coming under control of masses, though it has, for ages, 
groaned under ' rigorous censorship of class rule. The 
newspaper must, in order to please the people, throw light 
into dark places. It must, to be a success for its manager, 
work for the people at almost cost terms. A scheming 
editor or a junta of them, may, even in the comparative 
enlightenment of our century, manage to withhold from 
the public, the news, and the knowledge of the truth ; but 
this is fast vanishing. The best papers find it the most 
successful plan and most to their own personal advantage, 
to steer entirely aloof from combinations for purposes of 
accaparation, and build their reputation upon the ingenu- 
ous patron age of the people 1 . So far as they do this we 
find no fault. We even recognize that the printing press 
will, in course of time evolve from the control of monopo- 
lies. This fact is of grave importance, as it shows a simi- 
lar evolutionary tendency in all of the inventions, the 
monopoly of which, is now oppressing humanity. The 
press, unfortunately, has only made one forward step in 



96 A LABOR CATECHISM 

this direction. There is yet much of the old egoism left, as 
well as a powerful spirit of exclusive ness. But the plain- 
est examples of the accaparation of inventions, are found in 
things more modern. The Rail-Road is a modern instru- 
ment of progress. It is an invention. Its patent right has 
run out and left it the property of civilization. Its eco- 
nomical and impartial use by our race, as a collective in- 
terest .would facilitate, to an incalculable extent, the well- 
being of society. Instead of this, it is made the property 
of companies who, by successful business tact, have found 
it possible to control transportation ; and thus cut off, or 
dole out, at something like imperial pleasure, the very ta- 
ble sup plies, of whole nations of people. This abuse is look- 
ed upon as a revival of old imperialism, under a new form. 
It is regarded with alarm ; and should be most thoroughly 
considered within the College halls. All we ask of the 
College student is, that he enlarge the domain of discus- 
sion ; and freely take into his literary clubs, all subjects 
that come under the head of Mechanics applied, or Sci- 
euce of Economies ; uses of Machanical Instruments ; their 
benefits to masses, instead of particular individuals. 

Professor, Will you state a single case of proposed 
remedy for this so stated usurpation of a great invention 
by monopoly, merely as a clue for the students? 

Response. Interesting examples may be studied in 
many mechanical contrivances called Public Highways. 
But are they Public Highways, strictly speaking, when 
they are private property ? Can this be called an unequiv- 
ocal expression ? We have an excellent instance in the 
great inter-urban Bridge at Brooklyn. For many years 
this great population of two cities, were chafing in ill con- 
tent, under the individualist system of ferriage across the 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 97 

Strait that divides thorn. Municipal authority was power- 
less, because under the competitive system the apothegm 
"what's everybody's business is nobody's business," is true. 
The ferry business had grown up in the hands of individu- 
als. Boats proving insufficient as a public highway, the 
bridge became a necessity. It was too enormous an un- 
dertaking for an individual or company to complete. Noth- 
ing could consummate it but the combined jjopulations of 
these two great cities. Power of legislation was all they 
could bring to bear. But this they held as a most sover- 
eign reserve. With this legislation, the two cities by the 
will of the people, built the bridge. Money was drawn 
from the treasuries of both. If the bridge belongs to the 
people instead of a company, it follows that they are the 
power which, in future, must adjust the tariffs over it; 
and a magnificent rapid transit industry is thus whipped 
into the control of the correct owners. Revolution seems 
absolutely involved in it; for should other industries un- 
dergo a similar metamorphosis, you would have commu- 
nism. People are hereafter to own their means of transit 
from their homes to their business. Great efforts will be 
made by them to abate the fare. Further legislation will 
be resorted to. When the fore has fallen to two cents they 
will agitate further reduction until the best of rapid trans- 
it is enjoyed free. Perhaps the most striking case before 
us is that of the Telegraph monopoly. The natural reme- 
dy for its present dangerous and distressing misuse lies in a 
similar method of public ownership and management in- 
stead of an individual. 

Professor. How shall the great people with all their 
varying opinions, their contrarieties and incompatibilities, 
their incongruous mingling of shrewdness of one with tur- 



98 A LAUUtt CATECHISM 

pitucle of another, of aptitude with inexperience, think of 
taking the duties of so huge a net work as the telegraph, 
and of managing it with harmony ? 

Answer. You have asked the question every person 
should ask ; every student, especially. It is just the ques- 
tion we desire every College Faculty to present to the Lit- 
erary Clubs. We strongly urge that they examine it thor- 
oughly, and without bias; because they are to go forth, 
eventually into the world to reconcile these incompatibili- 
ties you speak of, and fix the people for assuming their le- 
gitimate duties. The world of humanity must adopt a se- 
vere adjustment of the mechanical science they possess, and 
adapt both its management and its results to masses rath- 
er than to individuals. % It is for the college, of all other 
schools, to understand and to set forth this enlightened ap- 
plication of invention, purely as a matter of science. It is 
not a matter of opinion, belief, morality, ethics or even 
equity, any more than the law of gravity, or the laws that 
govern the force of projectiles. Who is so silly as to falsify 
nature with such inexplicable crudities as morality, ethics, 
or equity? Either of these terms suggests volumes of doubt 
and cavil, when the simplest law of nature after being dis- 
covered and applied, hushes forever all disagreement, by 
the inexorable accuracy of its fiat. 

You know when you send a telegram what will be the 
results of your action. It is severe science. Apply the tele- 
graph, so that dispatches may be sent by every citizen at 
cost; say at one or two cents for thirty words, and you im- 
mediately effect a revolution. You abolish letter writing. 
You do entirely away .with secret correspondence, which 
has been the bane of races. You abolish a large part of the 
Postal Service, with its secret and hateful espionage, its 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 99 

costly jobbing of transit contracts, and its tedious delays. 
You improve the money order system, to a degree, that in- 
tercepts all individual and company commissions, and, in 
fact, you simplify and improve the entire Post Office busi- 
ness. And yet, the Telegraph is an innocent instrument, 
harmless and unconscious in itself, of the inroads it is des- 
tined to make upon old systems. ~Now this change comes 
from the innocent adoption, by the people, of an invention 
which works in accord with natural laws ; following them 
with a severe yet harmonious, mechanical exactitude ; and 
without any more reference to moral rectitude, or ideas of 
justice and equity than the equally harmonious, but great- 
er planetary and solar systems, that form the universe. 
The morals of ethics change with indoctrinated belief. Sci- 
ence is changeless. This should be distinctly understood ; 
since it clears off all objections to the discussion, in schools, 
of the politco-economic adjustment of invention, on the 
ground of usages and creeds. 

Pkofessoe. How shall the Telegraph be made to 

work these advantages ? 

Answee. That is a business detail. The govern- 
ment, which is the agent of the people, and in this coun- 
try, entirely subject to their collective voice, has for many 
years, managed the Postal Department with success. If 
the Department can improve this service by an invention 
like the Telegraph, there can be no doubt that the govern- 
ment has a perfect right, if the people order it through 
their representatives in Congress, to buy up every line of 
telegraph now in possession of companies. If the compa- 
nies will not sell, it has an equal right to construct new 
lines and operate them for the masses of people represented 
in Congress, which is to say, the entire population, instead 



100 A LABOR CATECHISM 

of the few people who now control them. But this sub- 
ject needs careful consideration by the people ; and who 
could, debate it with more care, or impartiality, than stu- 
dents of the College ? 

Professor. But is it right, that the Telegraph com- 
panies, after having constructed their lines with so much 
patience and wisdom, — run great risks in the adventure, 
taught the whole world valuable lessons, by developing the 
application of telegraphs, which is next in importance to 
the invention itself, — is it right, after they have set up so 
much, and enjoyed the use of it so little, that a greater" 
power, like an Alaric, should descend upon, and sieze it 
away from them ? It may look quite possible but is it not 
unfair? 

Response. Questions of merely adopted morals scarce- 
ly enter into a great mechanical equation. With the peo- 
ple, it is only a matter of physical result. Shall the inter- 
ests of forty millions be ignored to gratify a handful of for- 
ty ? Shall an important means of life and happiness, involv- 
ing great facilities for gaining bread and knowledge, be de- 
nied a whole population for the paltry sake of an almost in- 
visible minority? This query about equity, so dwindles 
before the importance of much versus little, that the figures 
take a new inspiration. The question is for the master#me- 
chanic to solve. The people are physicists. They do not 
ask how much moral advantage is going to accrue from a 
change like this. They only ask concerning the material 
advantages; or the advantages calculable from a general, e- 
conomic point of view. In short, the application of the un- 
erring mechanical laws is the base of the ethics of a vast 
people. What percentage of general gain will the manage- 
ment of the telegraph, by the government of the people, re- 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 10 1 

suit in? And to whom will this percentage accrue? If it 
can be proved that dispatches can be sent at one per cent 
less money than letters, the question is settled from an eco- 
nomic standpoint. If it can be proved that a dispatch, 
which now costs one dollar, can, by the Post Service of 
government, be sent with equal reliability and quickness, 
for three cents, then it must be adopted by the people as a 
mathematical co-efficient of their business. If the whole 
people, as owners and managers can be substituted for the 
present forty owners and managers, and this change of 
management results in bringing the entire message Service 
of the nation down to cost prices, the same being perform- 
ed, as the letter service now is, under the legalized head of 
the Post Office Department, then it becomes no longer an 
individual or com pany affair ; but a huge co-operation of 
the people for a cheap and effective message service ; and 
must be considered from the political point of view. It is 
no longer personal, but public. It is political economy. 
The change amounts to revolution; yet its measure of ar- 
gument is taken dynamically ; not ethically; for its conclu- 
sion is arrived at by figures; without reference to whether 
it overset personal interests, and theories, any more than 
the calculations of Copernicus and Galileo had reference to 
theories, or creeds upon which millions based their law of 
ethits and thnusmds, their means of life. The bigotry that 
prevents the politico-economic application of inventions, on 
considerations of moral right, is as intolerant as the bigot- 
ry that imprisoned Galileo, for making a physical discovery 
of the earth's orbital path. What consideration of right 
or wrong actuated Professor Morse, while studying out 
the vehicles of elective transmission ? It was as much the 
elaboration of the physicist, as is the dissection of a newly 






102 A LABOR CATECHISM 

found creature by the naturalist, to gain and impart knowl- 
edge. Yet it may produce revolution, as subversive of ex- 
isting methods, their details and usages, as its mechanical 
superiority proves itself, in circumventing the older meth- 
ods. No consideration of right or wrong will actuate the 
great majority, on questions of adopting it as a substitute, 
when once they are assured of its superiority and feasibili- 
ty. But if there were a question of justice involved, it 
would soon be settled by the law of jweponderance, or 
comparative claims, which is the lever of the labor argu- 
ment. The Electric Telegraph, under the leadership of 
forty business men, as owners, yields wealth, standing, 
happiness to these forty and their families. Success at- 
tends them, because, having almost unlimited rule, they 
put the price of dispatches enormously high. But still, 
these dispatches are available with certain business men. 
Unfortunately, however, these rates are so high as to be 
out of the reach of our forty million inhabitants. Not 
one message is actually sent, where there ought to be, 
and might be a thousand, if they could be dispatched at 
two, or three cents apiece ; or, in other words, at cost, 

Now compare this increase of happiness made possible 
to the forty owners, which results from the enlargement 
of their facilities for enjoyment, with the loss of happiness 
caused by the exclusion of this mechanism from all the 
forty millions of population of the land. The compari- 
son is as forty and their families, to forty million. JMake 
this comparison and you at once calculate mathematically, 
the preponderance of argument in favor of the people's 
owning and managing the telegraph, instead of the monop- 
olies. The preponderance is immensely in favor of the 
people. At an average, the family contains six persons. 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, 103 

Multiply these by the forty owners having families and you 
have only two hundred and forty persons benefited by 
their ownership in telegraph stock. What an infinitesimal 
claim is this, compared with the great collectivity, the 
people, who would own and enjoy it as a common family, 
if it were the property of government ! But lest this com- 
parison from actual ownership seem unfair, we will look at 
it from another standpoint; — that of approximate inter- 
ests. The comparison from actual ownership and par- 
ticipation is, however, complete. Approximate Interest is 
based upon both the first and second incentives of citizen- 
ship. By the first incentive to citizenship, the great mo- 
nopolerfeels an honest desire to do a service to the people 
and the country at large. It is his politicoeconomic incen- 
tive felt in common with the rest; but his scope is curtail- 
ed by his se 7 t /ish or second incentive which prompts hirn to 
raise the price so high that comparatively few can enjoy 
it. So again, on the first incentive, the people feel a strong 
desire to do a general service to the country, the same as 
the monopoly; but their second incentive, though selfish, 
is mutual and almost infinitely more diffused; since it is 
participated in, more than the monopoly's service, in pro- 
portion as the participants or members of the co-operation 
are more numerous than those of the monopoly. It be- 
comes at once, politico-economic, and the people who own 
and manage it feel two distinct impulses which grow deal- 
er to them as the management improves ; — the general in- 
terest of citizenship, and the interest in cheap and effective 
interchange. The one affords them pleasure, because it 
enhances the prosperity of the country. The other yields 
them ready cash, because it creates them great numbers of 
good situations, and reduces the cost of dispatches to a 



104 A LABOR CATECHISM 

figure that the poorest person can pay; thus leveling grades. 
If you ask how this can serve as a leveler of grades, then, 
we answer, it is the same as in the Post Office. In former 
times when the carrying service was in the hands of indi- 
viduals as the telegraph now is, the cost of sending letters 
was so great that few could afford to do it. The conse- 
quence was that fewer could write at all, and those enabled 
by easier circumstances to mail letters, were most encour- 
aged to learn to write. This caused an aristocracy, and re- 
sulted in warranting the thus favored in assuming superior- 
ity over the less favored class. The assumption by the 
government, which, in this country, is the people, of the 
administration of the Postal Service, has resulted in grad- 
ually reducing the cost of letters and papers through legis- 
lation to the minimum sum. Now that all can pay a cent 
for a postal card, and letter communications become possi- 
ble for rich and poor, the old grades are completely level- 
ed. Aristocracy, so far as the interchange of letters is con- 
cerned, is totally annihilated. Not so in the Magnetic 
Dispatch Service, although the actual cost of short commu- 
nications is less than by the old system, and so really pref- 
erable, that it will doubtless one day supplant it. But the 
Telegraph is in the hands of monopolies. These monop- 
olies can, and do, to the grief of the poorer people, charge 
such high rates for dispatches that few can use their dis- 
patch service. Those who can, feel triumphant pride in it; 
and obeying human instincts imagine themselves superior, 
thereby engendering class. Nothing, we assume, but the 
assumption of its control by the people, can level down 
this feeling which recognizes human beings from a stand- 
point of quantities or acquired possession, rather than qual- 
ities, or actual merit. 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 105 

Professor. Now with reference to the introduction 
of discussion of this kind into the literary societies, what 
does all our reasoning teach? 

Answer. It teaches, that while moralists are differ- 

ing over points of justice, equity, and the science of laws 
governing society, it often happens that a little innocent, 
inanimate instrument jumps in and settles the question for- 
ever. It teaches that ethics based in doubt, must succumb 
t$ ethics based in positive truth: — the science of applied 
mechanics, as the only demonstrable and unalterable basis 
of human society; excepting so far as we regard equity, as 
obedience to known natural law. What ehe shall ever 
become our unalterable moral guides? 

Professor. You exercise your ingenuity in present- 
ing the Telegraph as an example; but while you make it 
appear reasonable that the management of this invention 
may be absorbed by the government, and operated more 
extensively and more democratically, than it is at present, 
under the control of companies, how far are you going to 
extend your communism ? The Telegraph is not the only 
great invention in illustration. There are Railroads, Steam 
Ships, Ocean Cables, Ferries, even Coal, Iron and other 
Mines, which might, with equal propriety, be absorbed by 
the government, and operated for the common advantage 
of the great masses instead of the particular interests of a 
company. What limit do you set? The proposition mag- 
nifies itself into a terror ! 

Answer. Only the limits set by reason and experi- 
mental proof. The subject is worth the consideration of 
every student of economies, of philosophy, or of himself. 
If the schools and colleges of the land will cast aside that 
almost hypocritical reserve which, in point of progress, is 



106 A LABOR CATECHISM 

leaving them behind the work shop, and will take up the 
discussion of these grave subjects, we, of the experimental 
trades, will prove, by exact application, what their judge- 
ment recommends. Until they do this, there must remain 
too much contrariety, apathy and error. We need the va- 
ried judgement of all. 

Professor. Do you observe, of late years, a tendency 
in this direction ? 

Answer, Yes. Wrong is being attacked. In view 
of the great progress already attained through the world's 
labor-saving instruments, we are slowly, but certainly be- 
ginning to look upon this subject of equity, of morality, of 
established ethics, as a huge and gradually vanishing infat- 
uation, which is giving way to the more palpable proof 
that lies in Mechanics Applied. We are safe only when we 
base any venture upon severe physics that bring forth per- 
fectly calculable results, as those of Mechanics Applied. 

The rupture of the least law of mechanics is invariably 
attended with punishment; the obedience of mechanic laws, 
with foretold results. This is without regard to questions 
of moral or religious observances with which we do not 
interfere nor wish students to do so. 



CHAPTER V. 



SIMILARITY OF OBJECT RESIDING IN" 
TRADE AND POLITICAL UNIONS 

OF WOPvKINGMEN. 



Dialogue with a Deputy from a Protective 
Union of Tradesmen. 

Protectivist. We are Trade Unionists; and hear- 
ing of your movements, agitating the working people, and 
inciting them to political action, have come to express 
the views of our order upon your unwarrantable conduct. 

Advocate of Political Party. If you are a Trade 
Unionist., please inform us, what the true object of this 
kind of Protective Union is. 

Protectivist. Jt is to elevate its members and promote 
union, equality and fraternity. To secure situations of work 
for our members, out of employment. To establish a bene- 
fit fund for the sick and for old age, and to promote in va- 
rious other ways, the social well being of all the individu- 
als who compose the Order. It is a government of the 
members. Our Union is a government, on a small scale, 



108 A LABOR CATECHISM 

and prescribes for the actions so far as possible, of all its 
people. A point upon which it is particularly severe, is in 
relation to polities. No political action has hitherto been 
allowed. Such Unions are purely social institutions. 

Response. It was mentioned that your trade union 
government is intended to secure employment to its mem- 
bers who are idle. Such is exactly what the unionists of 
the political Labor persuasion are tiying to do. It is your 
desire to collect a fund for the sick and the aged. We 
are doing all we can to accomplish this object. It is your 
wish to promote the social well being of all members. 
Who are your members, but the people? So you are en- 
dorsing the functions belonging to the State, or Govern- 
ment, and presume to accomplish its work as well or better 
than your own great Government, which is yours, by virtue 
of your citizenship. 

Protecttvist. Our best Trade organizations, such 

as the Amalgamated Engineers, the Amalgamated Carpen- 
ters and Joiners, the Bricklayers, Typographical Unions, 
&c. carefully take care of their members. In some of our 
best Unions this fraternal care, one for another, amounts 
to a sweet, reciprocal ownership, by the society, of its 
members, body and soul. The society, by joint endear- 
ment, one for all and all for one, stands ready to bring in- 
to play its combined forces, to help a worthy Brother. 
All rules of our society are strict, plain, and concise ; and 
none but the law-breakers are censured. 

Remark. Protective Unions then, of this kind, are 
in all respects, governments. It is a government that 
takes care, not only of its working members in good stand- 
ing, but also of their wives and children. A member in 
good standing is not a pauper, feeding on its benevolence, 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 109 

but a veritable citizen, clothed with the power of legisla- 
tion ; and ready, at any time when called upon, to take the 
duties of office. Are not all important measures submitted 
to the deliberations of each council, or Branch, for approv- 
al or rejection, before they cati be ratified by the Delegate 
meeting? 

Protectivist. They are, in our best Trade Unions; 
such as the Amalgamated Societies of Engineers, and of 
Carpenters and Joiners. All that have stood the te^ of 
time and vicissitude have long since adopted this custom. 

Remark. Trade Union government, then, is even more 
cautious and severe in its legislation than the government 
of the United States, or of England, whose citizens often 
get deceived and imposed upon; because they do not ex- 
ercise this, of all others, most valuable right. Your gov- 
ernment is quietly practicing not only the votive franchise, 
but more. Its members (citizens) not satisfied with the 
ever erring judgement of its representatives, do not confide 
to them, final powers. They find it dangerous. They 
find that representatives abuse their power. Representa- 
tives form themselves into juntos; and having final pow- 
ers, procure money and emoluments belonging to their 
constituents. This misappropriation cannot be possible, 
if all the citizens in their various councils, reserve to them- 
selves the final ratification or rejection of the laws and 
measures that govern them, thus making the passage of 
your laws slow, grave, and sure ;— even clumsy, perhaps, 
and tiresome ; — but laws are grave and solemn things ; and 
should not be trifled with. Misfortunes of the working 
class are largely due to this almost criminal neglect and 
ignorance on the part of citizen members, in not them- 
selves, carefully ratifying every measure before it becomes 



110 A LABOR CATECHISM 

a law. Your Protective Organization, then, is purely a 
Referendum government: and is the wisest and most care- 
ful form of political guidance known in the world. The 
referendum government makes it obligatory upon each 
member, or citizen, to study and be wise for himself and 
his family ; since the destiny of his whole household de 
pends upon his own legislative wisdom. It will never do 
to entrust final decisions to representatives, who possess 
the machinery of deceit and fraud, back of which there is 
no appeal at the command of the constituency. Is not 
this statement correct as to the details and out workings 
of the most successful and long tried Trade Union Govern- 
ment ? 

Protectivist. It is. 

Remark. Our next important thing, then, necessary 
to decide, is with regard to the percentage of the general 
public who have been absorbed by your growing Unions. 
How numerous are they in Great Britain and America? 

Protectivist. Why do you ask this question? 

Answer. To get at facts so that we may talk intelli- 
gently ; as it is for information that you call. 

Trade Unionist. It is impossible to ascertain cor- 
rectly the number of trade Unions and members of Or- 
ganizations for trade purposes. They are constantly grow- 
ing up and falling off, according to their vicissitudes. 
Sometimes they attempt too much and get defeated; when 
there usually follows a reaction; and we almost lose sight 
of ourselves. Such reaction is again followed by a steady 
re-growth, and on looking it over, wo find that in a few 
years the Unions are more solid than ever; and what is 
encouraging, more kindly disposed, more numerous, and 
wiser, by both experience and study. Another important 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. Ill 

feature of this growth, is seen in the tendency of the 
Unions to amalgamate. In Grent Britain, they are thus 
encouraging the growth of numbers, funds and power. In 
America they are also doing well. 

Very many of these Trade Uionists are unmarried men 
and we have many women. So that no more than three or 
four persons can be represented by each member, as de- 
pendent upon, or directly interested in the Union ; fcot- 
ing up the entire number of parties directly and indirect- 
ly dependent upon such Unions for the means of life, at 
perhaps five or six million men, women and children, in 
the world. But large as this may seem, they are few com- 
pared with the populations of the countries in which they 
live. In the British Isles where there are thirty millions 
of people, there are less than three million Trade Unionists, 
and families, looking to the Unions for the means of life. 
The proportion therefore, of the people, absorbed by the 
organizations is less than one in ten ; or less than ten per 
cent. In the United States where the population is forty 
millions, the number of these Unionists is only 350,000, 
which multiplied by three, — about the average number of 
persons in the family they represent, who are also interest- 
ed in the success of the Union,— gives less than four per 
cent as the proportion of the inhabitants absorbed by these 
Unions in this country. We give rough figures; but the 
exact number if we had, we might prefer to keep. 

Question". Do all these Associations refer their im- 
portant measures, such as amendments to their Constitu- 
tion, heavy benefits to crippled members, decision regard- 
ing strikes &c, back to the members for approval or rejec- 
tion, or do they mostly confide in the judgement and hon- 
esty of an elected or appointed Congress, Executive Com- 



112 A LABOR CATECHISM 

mittee, or Delegated Body who may, or may not operate 
solely for the interests of the society? 

Wokkingman. They are experimenting both ways; 
with a gradual growth of the former. 

Question. Do you intend to augment your Unions? 

Answer. We are very incessantly and actively en- 
gaged in forming new Unions and enlarging the old ones. 
Growth of these associations is somewhat brisk at pres- 
ent, and the prospect is brightening on every hand. The 
members are attracted by the now clearly demonstrated 
fact, that the larger the proportion of workingmen in com- 
bination in any branch of trade, the easier it becomes to car- 
ry a point. The Bricklayers, for instance, when they were 
a unit, found little difficulty in obtaining the Eight Hour 
system of days work, and in getting good wages. Good 
organization makes men independent. When we are nu- 
merous we can drive out of the city, or force into our own 
ranks, or otherwise rid ourselves, of all intruders who at- 
tempt to underbid us. In fact, a single vote has been 
known to break up, and completely route the business of 
firms that refused to treat the Society with respect. In 
all cases, the power of organization raises the workman 
more nearly upon a level with his employer. It seems 
hard, and makes employers, who have always supposed 
themselves superior, wince as though it were an intolera- 
ble innovation. But we hold that it is just that the old 
tide be turned in favor of the unhappy many; and what 
is just, is fair. Mere sympathy for those who, since the 
world began, have shown no sympathy, cannot avail a- 
gainst the cause of justice and of human equality. 

Question. About this we will not quarrel. Do you 
think the successes you speak of will so advance the trade 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 113 



union cause, that anything like a result you refer to, in 
the case of the Bricklayers, could be obtained in every 
trade, as well as in every part of the country, where this 
trade is applied? 

Answer. The combination of all, if wisely managed 
is sure to produce any reasonable result we may demand ; 
but the combination of a part, produces fatal antagonisms 
among us. Employers well understand this : and they re- 
sort to evejy means by which to procure ruptures, through 
misunderstanding and competition between us. To do 
this they find it convenient to circulate among our most ig- 
norant and credulous numbers, disagreeable newspapsr re- 
ports and circulars. They make an extremely vicious use 
of the word "communism." They taunt the workmen, who 
otherwise, might be disposed to organize themselves into 
Trade Unions, with communism, and disrespect of religion, 
and crown their great coup de strategic with cooly impor- 
tation. This is their growing clue. For this they estab- 
lish bureaus of immigration, on both sides of the Ameri- 
can Continent. Europeans and Africans are imported to 
the Atlantic seaboard, while Asiatics swarm along the 
Coasts of California. Such facts are keenly observed by 
the Organization which sees the necessity of forming pro- 
tective unions among all nationalities at home and abroad. 
Contractors of human flesh, or labor jobbers begin, im- 
mediately to cry against the "Internationalists" who would 
organize labor Societies in all countries for a common fra- 
ternity and a common defense, using their vast power of 
money and tact, in buying up the vehicles of calumny, ob- 
loquy and prejudice, against the struggling toilers of all 
nations. 

Demand. Do you sympathize with these Coolies, 



114 A LABOR CATECHISM 

who are in that way, prevailed upon to immigrate hither? 
Is it the duty ol } 7 our Organization to protect Coolies? 

"Wobkingatajh:. Yes. Asiatic Coolies would not em- 
igrate, cf their owm will, wretched as is their situation 
at home. People in the Orient, have not the repute of 
being enterprising in this way. But while we find no 
fault with their growing spirit of enterprise, we dislike, 
for their own sake, to see them juggled and wheedled 
off to America under the conditions described by Amer- 
ican Consuls abroad. We find that their appearance on 
these shores is the result of a deep laid scheme of the 
Contract System. Men and women from Asia are thus 
made to enrich labor jobbers by underbidding our rates 
of labor; and in this manner, have inaugurated a system 
which may eventuate in driving us from the labor mar- 
ket, entirely. In former years, the African chattel traf- 
fic drove white labor from a large territory, by a simi- 
lar, and not much less revolting method. We are deal- 
ing with a grave question ; for if one kind of slavery re- 
sulted in horrible carnage, why may not another? Our 
Coolies, though not confessedly so, are slaves. They are 
induced to come by treacherous means. Conniving men 
versed in their religious superstitions, are posted in dif- 
ferent localities of the eastern world, and, working upon 
the avarice of equally vicious persons of influence and 
power, manage to decoy poor working people, by time 
lease-bargains, mortgages on their labor, glowing prom- 
ises and other irresponsible overtures ; and they are trans- 
ported by means, nearly as cruel as the horrid slave ships; 
made many times to hover about the odious, sickening 
slave pens and enchcres, as negroes were sold in days that 
make us shudder to recall. The cooly Contract system, 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 115 

which may result in starving us, is the dismal opening of 
another slavery. It is, therefore, the system under which 
these people are imported, that must be looked upon, as 
inhuman and enslaving. If these people came here of their 
own accord and through their own enterprise and would 
overcome their own prejudices, and become citizens, it 
would alter the matter. We have no more reasonable ob- 
jections to their coming, than we have to our respected and 
honored Germans, or English, or Irish, who are proving 
themselves industrious citizens, and of whom many of us 
are a part. But if we attempt to organize these people in- 
to unions of self-protection, or if we would combine them 
at home, and enlighten them on these principles of self- 
help, which are proving of such immense advantage to 
ourselves, we are immediately sneered down as "comrnu- 
nists," or "internationalists-" 

Question. Are we not led to infer, by your glowing- 
views, that the growth of Trade Unions ought to be ex- 
tended all over the world ? 

Pkotectivist. Most certainly. And it should be so 
considered by every human being depending for his living 
upon his labor. Never, till such union is achieved, can class 
be abolished, and equal man-hood and woman-hood estab- 
lished. Let me give you an example : — There is an ar- 
rangement of these human flesh contractors on the Atlan- 
tic Seaboard, to supply Manufacturers, Builders and Far- 
mers, with cheap labor. Advertisements an,d circulars are 
scattered over Germany, Holland, Scandinavia and else- 
where, setting forth in brilliant colors the marvelous wealth 
and resources of the Americas. Now among the many 
who are induced to emigrate hither, some are members of 
excellent Trade Unions, who are well posted on all these 



216 A LABOR CATECHISM 

exaggerations. They take out their card of membership 
there, which serves to install them into full membership 
here. Many of them find work through their Union as soon 
as they arrive; and thus avoid the discouraging and impov- 
erishing necessity of working for almost nothing, until they 
pick up enough of the language and usages of the country 
to demand higher pay. It is this, that the importer of hu- 
manity makes his profit upon , — this first wear; — this in- 
terval of time between the poor immigrant's landing, and 
his acquiring enough knowledge of the language and hab- 
its of his adopted country, to inspire him with the presump- 
tion to demand more respectable wages. The scheme is to 
constantly keep a large number of employers supplied with 
hands at almost nothing. Instances are common where la- 
borers and others are, in the darkness of want and credul- 
ity, decoyed off to brickyards and other slave pens, and 
worked with such fiendish brutality by the foreman, that 
in a week, tired nature gives out, and their very groans and 
agony are systematically mistaken for revolt and made the 
beginning of a tumult. The scoundrels then drive the poor 
wretches off without pay on the charge of insurrection, — 
their treacherous, improvised pretext; — and another gang 
is immediately sent on, by the impious knaves, in league 
with them, at the Labor Exchange Offices ; and the same 
outrage is re-committed, times without limit. This dam- 
ning practice is made to elude the law by presenting a shade 
of legality in this wise: — A verbal arrangement is made by 
which the poor are made to agree, through the wiles of in- 
terpreters, to work a certain length of time. If they quit 
before that time they forfeit all their wages except the 
commission, paid per head, to the city agent, and their 
transportation ticket from this Labor agency, to the place 






OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 117 



of work. This, the law arranges for. The money agreed 
to be paid those who stay the full time, is often a fabulous 
sum to them; but just before this time expires, the row, or 
tumult in disguise, is sprung upon them, and the fuss is so 
cunning and- surreptitious, and the yards are cleared so 
quickly, by the hireling police, or other parties, that the 
poor unsophisticated builders of Babel, however innocent, 
and wronged, are assumed to be the only instigators of 
their own forfeiture. Such fearful injustice cannot be prac- 
ticed upon the Trade Unionist. 

Question. Did you not mention before, that some 
of your best Trade Unions are those imported or trans- 
planted from Europe ? 

Peotectivist. Yes. Quite a number of our most 

effective labor organizations are purely British, bringing 
with them, and conforming to, all the rules of the mother 
societies. The Social-Demokratlsche Arbeiter Yereine, 
or Social Democratic Workingmen's Unions, are transplant- 
ed from Germany. Among the valuable trade unions 
from England, are the United Order of American Brick- 
layers, the Amalgamated Carpenters and Joiners, the Amal- 
gamated Engineers &c. These powerful organizations of 
Labor are becoming rich, and with wealth, they carry 
their points. Now to my argument. If there were per- 
fect organizations which included a majority of the work- 
ers of each trade and calling in existence, in the different 
countries w r here these people are, and if there were cor- 
responding Unions here so that each person could be help- 
ed by the fraternal energy of his own Union, on his ar- 
rival, in short, if there were no chances for these ubiqui- 
tous Labor Exchange agents, to swindle the immigrant, 
what an immense amount of suffering would be avoided ! 



118 A LABOR CATECHISM 

Once acknowledge this, and you acknowledge the need of 
an International Workingmen's Union of Trades. The 
world's workers, male and female, are in great need of 
more Organization in their respective homes and more of 
the science of international deliberation. There ought to 
be Trade Unions started in China, Japan, India, every- 
where; and our own Organizations at home, would not 
only be doing a humane deed, hut would make honor and 
progress, by sending missionaries to all parts of the world, 
to teach, the benefits of combination among working peo- 
ple, against systems that enslave them. 

Remark. After all you have said, you only concur 
with us; although we would avoid using harsh words; be- 
cause these so called Jobbers of Labor's Profits, are, in an- 
other way, but 'unhappy victims of the competitive system. 
The evil is inherent in the system, not in the men. 

Protectivist. How do you agree with us? Instead 
of advocating these practical means of solidarity among 
the down-trodden working people, and instituting plans of 
deliverance from the horrible shambles of slavery which 
exist, systematically, at home and abroad, interlinking 
with each other for the propagation of this disunion among 
us, avarice among them, and the establishment of a still 
more extended and exclusive reign of monopoly; instead of 
this, you would, if we comprehend you, get us mixed up in 
potty politics and divide us by political wrangles ! 

Response. On the contrary ; you have shown that 
the very finest and richest, as well as most powerful unions 
of tradesmen, are those that exercise most wisely, the vo- 
tive franchise; The very oldest and most thoroughly estab- 
lished of them, such as have stood the rack of trial, you ac- 
knowledge to be those which enforce the discussion, by all 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, 119 

members, of every project of a new law, or change of an 
old one. It is claimed, in fact, that your organizations which 
are producing the happiest results, are those that have been 
practicing the referendum. This is the most radical prop- 
osition in political science. Yours, is an entirely j)olitical 
manoeuvre, because you would have it engross the masses, 
and you work by ballot. It is a subject of discussion and 
doubt to-day, among classes of education and means, wheth- 
er the people who compose the Citizens of any country, 
monarchical, or republican, are yet wise enough to assume 
this function. It is strongly insisted, that the citizens, un- 
der the government of the American Republic, are not yet 
advanced enough to legislate for themselves, by assuming 
and executing the ratifying power. Men argue that if the 
people send their Representatives to make the laws which 
govern them, it is as far as it will do to trust them. They 
still insist that such laws will be better made and more 
strictly enforced, by the Representatives, than by referring 
them back to the people at large, for final adoption or re- 
jection. In other words, the political economists and scho- 
lastic thinkers arc of opinion that the people are not clear- 
headed enough yet, to be able to criticise and properly sanc- 
tion the Bills which their own representatives have codi- 
fied at their Congress and Legislature. Your trade union 
experiment is a bomb-shell in their ranks, which explodes 
a great theory. It proves that a class of citizens, who can- 
not be regarded as possessing a full average of experience, 
— the mechanics and laborers of England and America the 
education of whom has been greatlv neglected, — are found 
perfectly competent to not only ratify their own laics, but 
also to detect and punish all attempts at mal-administra- 
tion. It is not only a fact, but it is a cheering chapter of 



120 A LABOR CATECHISM 

news,' whose portent might well be advocated among our 
political economists who find it easier to gain money and 
popularity by doubting truth, tlian by telling it. In fact, 
the experiment of the Trade Union is political ; and it is a 
foretaste of a mighty revolution. Can you not see that 
the very measures you are advocating, such as the building 
up of Organizations for mutual protection over the world, 
is an intensely political movement ? Any action for the ad- 
vantage of large numbers of people, if that action depend 
for its success upon the casting of the vote, is political. 
Trade unions are politico-economical ; because, their busi- 
ness is to further the economy of Trade Labor, in a way 
which it shall redound to the best interest of the members 
and their families. What more can a Parliament or a Leg- 
islature do ? The state is a compact of the Citizens within 
a given territory, to be governed by the law 7 s which are 
the result of mutual deliberations. Such action of any com- 
munity is political. A trade union is a compact between 
each other, of many workmen who are, in like manner, gov- 
erned by laws of their own enactment. All laws, alike of 
the State and of the union, are for the general welfare of 
the members or citizen^, and their families. 

Peotectivist. We do not pretend to deny that-the 
trade organization, on the whole, has a political aspect. 
But we are opposed to having any thing to do with local 
politics. The moment we begin to meddle with politics, we 
find that the interest in the organization wanes. Working- 
men have been repeatedly plundered by the tricks of polit- 
ical rings. They have learned by grim experience to loathe 
all politics of the times and place no confidence in the har- 
pies of political jugglery, 

Answeb. This is wisdom itself. But it is clear that 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 121 

you fail to see that you are yourselves building up a Polit- 
ical Party in your trade Organization. The moment your 
Organization becomes so perfect that it can carry its own 
points, as in the cases you have mentioned, and you begin 
to perceive the strength of your command, you will seethe 
wisdom of applying this strength, to crush out the selfish 
corruptionists. In a country like this, where privileges are 
not denied those who have the manhood to claim them, 
such a power cannot remain inactive. In fact, the work- 
ingmen are already deliberating upon the practicability of 
political action ; and the result has been rather to combine 
than to disperse them. 

Peotectivist. There is too much vagary about po- 
litical action. We are practical. We want to apply our 
effort where it will yield something direct for our families. 
We want principally the guaranty of work, at good prices, 
so that we shall no longer feel the dread of poverty pinch- 
ing at our firesides. How is this to be obtained by politics ? 

Answer. We do not propose to curtail the functions 
of your Unions. Not in the least. On the contrary, they 
should be made more effective. What we propose, is to 
extend their functions; not to curtail them. If the Trade 
Union can educate its members by discussion so far as to ef- 
fectually refer its propositions back to the entire member- 
ship for ratification or rejection, it is safe to conclude that 
it can vote with wisdom for or against any person whom, it 
may nominate for office. 

Peotectivist. What course of action can you pre- 
scribe that would commend itself to the Unions we repre- 
sent ? 

Axswee. We would advise no particular course ; for 
that would partake of leadership. The great Labor Move- 



122 A LABOR CATECHISM 

rnent should shun lenders. In the march of great principles 
there can be no leaders, any more than there can be lead- 
ers in science. There may be doctors or teachers but they 
are mere exponents ; not leaders. In this political point of 
view, a leader is, in this movement, a mere political mount- 
ebank whom you should always shun, as one who seeks to 
jump on the car you have with toil constructed, and drive 
it to perdition. Most leaders are designing persons whose 
scheme io to accomplish the two-fold object of glorifying 
themselves by distroying you. They wheedle your votes, 
get elected, betray your trust, work all their influence a- 
gainst you, break up your organization by stimulating dis- 
sentions and then leave you, disarmed and disgusted, at 
the profuse emolument they obtain from the common ene- 
my whom their treacherous betrayal of yourselves has serv- 
ed. Beware of such Politicians. We can only mark out 
an object to be gained by political action. The manner in 
which this purpose is realized, it is safest to leave to you. 
We will simply suppose you represent four Societies : the 
Iron Workers, the Ship Carpenters, the Riggers and the 
Caulkers; and that you are located, say in, and around 
Boston. Apart from the multitude of industries, great 
and small in that busy city, there is one which we hear lit- 
tle about, but which is the common property of citizens. 
Immediately in the vicinity is the Charlestown Navy 
Yard. It contains all the advantages of a first class in- 
dustry. Ship-yards, Rigging lofts, Machine shops, and ev- 
ery possible requisite of a great and flourishing business. 
These immense concerns are the property of the people, 
and should be conducted by the people in their own inter- 
ests. The-e works, must get out of war-like grooves, and 
be turned to general use. What is the use of a manufactory 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 123 

if it is not to supp^ the people ? Yet in times of peace, 
these vast works lie idle because there is no more use for 
the engines of death. How long must the individual enter- 
prise and the spirit of gain be the chief incentive to manu- 
facture. Rightly considered these are co-operative works ; 
to produce what? Death! The people do not want death; 
they want life. Now is it not clear that if a company build 
ships for sale and sell them to the public for what they can 
get, that they are prompted by a reverse spirit from that 
which prompts the people when they manufacture their 
own ships? In the one case, it is pure individualism incit- 
ed by speculation. In the other, it is collectivism ; and 
makes and distributes these necessaries according to the 
people's own w^ants, without any spirit of speculation 
whatever. It is pure co-operation, which reverses the old 
order of things, and avoids the methods of intermediary 
manufacturers and sellers. The immense difference between 
an industry conducted upon the co-operative system, is 
shown in the fact that co-operation saves advertising. Ad- 
vertising is an enormous branch of human labor belonging 
to competism. It is neither natural to monopoly nor to 
co-operation ; and if it is used in them it is because they 
are not the offspring of competism exclusively; and what 
ever of the advertising trade exists in co-operation or mo- 
nopoly, comes from the competism that lingers in them. 

Nothing but a higher knowledge and practice of Politi- 
cal Economy can ever rid the world of these ravenous and 
all devouring urgents, — competition and monopoly, — that 
feed upon the labor of the poor; and nothing but the com- 
bined virtues of wisdom and organized force can eliminate 
this gigantic and unproductive branch of human labor, the 
advertising system. 



124 A LABOR CATECHISM 

From this, it will be seen, that there are three very dis- 
tinct methods, upon which society conducts its economies 
of life : — Competition, Monopoly, and Co-operation. 

The Navy Yard alluded to, so long as it performs its own 
work direct, according to the regulations of government, is 
a co-operation. When the government authorities banter 
with outside parties for bids to execute the work without 
regard to the advantage of the citizens employed, then it 
is no longer co- operation, but competitive in its nature. 
But when Congress orders work, and appropriates money 
for it, and a single individual outside, conspires with Sena- 
tors, Representatives and other persons of influence, to get 
this work entirely away from the government ship-yards, 
and shops, in order that he may himself do the work, 
and by reducing wages, lengthening the day's labor and 
slighting the work performed, make a fortune for himself 
only, while his neighbors suffer, then our Navy Yard be- 
comes a victim to monopoly. The workmgmen, there- 
fore, as a natural consequence, cannot fail to see the need 
of combination in favor of the purely co-operative man- 
agement of this naturally co-operative industry. 

Trades Unions are learning by experience, that a lit- 
tle combination and energy, lend more influence than the 
promises of Senators or Representatives. With wisdom 
they can nominate and elect representatives of their own; 
and with such power, can secure all this work to co-op- 
eration notwithstanding the wishes of outside competitors 
and monopolists. A workmgman always prefers to work 
for himself. Now no lover of liberty is destitute of feel- 
ings of responsibility toward his government. He must, 
and does, from the nature of his stock in the government 
which is his citizenship, feel a pleasure in seeing his ships 






OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 125 

and other means of defense, in time of war, well con- 
structed. In times of peace, what is to hinder their per- 
forming the work of the people ? A workingman owns 
his government, and has a right, in common with all oth- 
ers, not only to look to its best interests, but also to be 
employed by it. 

If, therefore, the Navy Yards produce better ships than 
the outside ship-yards, and if they pay, and treat the work- 
men better, then it is easy to conclude that they should 
be allowed to do the necessary work; even if it be the 
manufacture of mowers, or sewing machines. Manufacture 
is a thing which every cititzen has an interest in. Its nat- 
ural peace method is co-operation. Workingmen who must 
bear the brunt of war, want no more of it. Co-operation 
means peace; competism, war. Here then, we have an in- 
dustry, furnished with all the Stocks, Docks, Shops and 
fixtures, necessary for a business, which, if set in opera- 
tion, would employ fifteen thousand workmen, on the co- 
operative principle. The men are better paid, work less 
time, produce more genuine ships, and for as little mon- 
ey ns the outside contractor produces them. N~ot that 
the workman's labor is less efficient in an outside concern, 
but because the proprietor generally requires for his indi- 
vidual profit, that percentage, which in good co-operation, 
goes to the workman m form of increased wages and short 
hours. The proposition is clear. If you possess organized 
numbers and social management, you restore the co-opera- 
tion to yourselves. The simple application of that power, 
involves political action. In times of peace, when you 
want social prosperity, men are speculating out of you, up- 
on contracts paid by appropriations to build engines of 
war. Turn these works into social factories of peace; for 



126 A LABOR CATECHISM 

worldngmen are the true victims of war ; and an Interna- 
tional Association of them, if it had energy, discipline soli- 
darity, virtue, might prove the only power, to check the 
war spirit and turn arsenals and armories into people's 
workshops; and bring about the universal peace. 

Protectivist. The Trade Unionists could not consent 
to do anything until they are more instructed on the ar- 
gument you adduce. Must of us are accustomed to work 
in outside establishments and know little or nothing of the 
principles you advocate. It might be years before we could 
acquire sufficient clearness to see the permanent advanta- 
ges of this sort of cooperation. We cannot understand how 
co-operation can be so fraternal as to do away with war, 
although we are its victims. 

Remark. It is plain that it requires something more 
than a knowledge of the rules of your Order to be a true 
Trade Unionist. The votive franchise is supreme in this 
country, and if you will not use it when you see an oppor- 
tunity to set such an enormous industry as this, in motion, 
manufacturing the necessaries of life, and thereby bringing 
employment and gladness to the homes of 15,000 families, 
you must expect that competism will organize its political 
forces against you and crush you down. When manufac- 
ture and distribution are conducted in the interests of the 
people in general, it wnll speedily bring forth peace, pros- 
perity and plenty for all. But so long as the Trade Unions 
and other Labor associations persist in the neglect of these 
great and important matters, in which their happiness and 
liberty are involved, and throw away their golden oppor- 
tunities to destroy the competitive system, so long must 
labor remain in subjection. 

Protectivist. You speak only of one Navy Yard. 






OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 127 

Are not these government, or co-operative industries, as 
you term them, numerous ? 

Answer. They are already numerous enough to have 
called forth the attention of the Labor Movement. Jobbers 
who use them are the true cravers for government employ. 
Do not, therefore, allow your Unions to be influenced by 
their taunts at you, as seekers after '"Government Employ." 
It is often their own emissaries who, with all the w T ilcs of 
the competitive diplomate, ca>t obloquy upon you for that 
which they themselves are surreptitiously surfeiting on; 
— government employ. The labor broker not only craves 
contracts from government, which furnish Mm wealth, but 
he systematically turns the engines of power and persuasion 
against you, who neither ask nor expect a tithe of that he 
receives. He seeks, with the lobby, to use influence in cast- 
ing obloquy upon your innocent effort to live by using 
these arsenals co-operatively, while he destroys the virtue 
of that co-operation and undermines the health of its dem- 
ocracy, by using, in his monarchical methods of industry, 
the appropriations that were intended to be paid you in 
days' w r ork. The workingman has a right to help his gov- 
ernment mnke ships not only for war, but for peace ; and 
therefore, has a right to be employed by his government; 
wlrle the contractor who gets away this employment, and 
enriches himself on the appropriations, does it by irregular 
means. 

There exist already, splendid industries, for which the 
different governments, Municipal, Slate, and General, order 
appropriations annunlly. They belong to you, the people, 
and were intended for you ; and if you would turn your 
force towards obtaining them, you could all have constant 
employment on your own premises without fear of being 



128 A LABOR CATECHISM 

disci large d. As it is, you neglect to obey one incentive 
of good citizenship. You are hired to execute the work, 
at poor wages and long hours, and caused to slight the 
duty. Thus you are given bad inculcations against the 
government you are under obligations to protect. Still 
you refuse to take political action. 

Peotectivist. Will you mention some of these in- 
dustries for which governments are making appropria- 
tions? 

Eemabk. They are too numerous to mention. There 
are eight Navy Yards in the United States. One at Brook- 
lyn has accommodations for 18,000 or 20,000 workmen 
when in full activity. The greatest part of the enor- 
mous manufacturing and distributing business of the Post 
Office is let out on contract. The printing of Postal 
Cards, Stamps, Envelopes, Official Papers &c. should all be 
paid for by days' work. Instead of this, the contract is 
given to others; and you are required to make them, not 
for government, at all; but for parties indirectly, who, in 
your ignorance of resistence, make slaves of the workers. 
The government pays a contractor about the same amount 
it would cost to make ships, in the regular way on the en- 
nobling live and let-live system it once adopted ; — that of 
good pay and eight hours. The contractor profits, not so 
much on the government as on you ; which is in propor- 
tion as he can obtain more of you, in urging your labor^ 
reducing your wages and lengthening your hours. 

Every city has its enormous public industries; such as 
street cleaning. Sewer making &c. The necessary busi- 
ness under the management of the different Boards of Edu- 
cation, Public works, and the Departments of Docks, Parks 
and other public improvements is very great. Still with 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 129 

some few exceptions such as the schools, this vast business 
is done by contract, or by an irregularity. The building of 
Edifices for the General Government is accomplished, to a 
large extent, by petted contractors. In fact, when Trade 
Unions see the true magnitude of their loss, and humilia- 
tion, caused by their own prejudice against political action, 
they will certainly arouse with the farmers, and force the 
application of more regular methods of work. 

Protective st. What plan would you advise for a 

Social Union, wishing to keep its members employed in any 
of these government works? 

Answer. A plan that will demonstrate to the poli- 
tician, who now hires you and gives positions to those in 
the collusion in payment for their services at the poles, 
that they are no longer required. The workmen them- 
selves should be so thoroughly organized that they can 
make the execution of this work, a study. Individuals 
who now control public works make it a study. Being 
very few in numbers and having absolute control, they of- 
ten make a bad study of it. This is the way the public 
work is now done. Of course they study to make money 
for themselves; and it often happens that it is not the con- 
tractor who proves the lowest bidder, but the contractor 
who offers the politician the highest commission for the 
work, who gets it ! It becomes, therefore, necessary, that 
the laboring citizens, who are to perform this work, 
should make a thorough study of what they are paid for ; 
both for their own, and the general good, for no other 
method can ever eliminate these irregularities from the 
public works. The honest masses of workmen can be re- 
lied upon. The general public must take charge of the 
work which belongs to the general public. The working 



130 A LABOR CATECHISM 

masses, who execute this work, are the general public. 
They do the work, and ought to have charge of it for their 
own, and the general good. If the work is contracted out 
to an individual, interest in the management of it, dies; be- 
cause interest ceases when control is gone. The public 
interest is arrested and stifled and irregularity is certain, 
in proportion as public control is diminished numerically; 
that is, in proportion as public control is irregularly taken 
from the people, and surrendered to individuals. 

Protectivist. Would you have us use our combina- 
toin as a school of deliberation wherein the subject of 
study shall be our own means of support ? 

Answer. Exactly so. 

Protectivist. What guarantee then, have the great 
public, that we shall not be as selfish and dishonest as any 
of those who have plundered the public treasuries and de- 
prived the workmen of their pay ? 

Response. Your question, you will see, answers it- 
self* if you will allow yourselves to reflect and study. Ev- 
ery important subject of political economy must be stud- 
ied through practical lessons. Supposing your organiza- 
tion of laborers is composed of the residents of a Ward in 
one of our great cities. One main object of the organiza- 
tion, like that of any Trade Union, is to procure work for 
its members, and look to the general welfare of their fam- 
ilies. Upon this object exclusively, they are combined. 
Upon this object they deliberate and vote. Upon this ob- 
ject they are so anxious of success that they dare not trust 
to their own judgement, on matters of general impor- 
tance ; "but find it most sure to refer all important pro- 
jects and decrees, back to the members of the different 
Unions in the country for ratification or rejection. 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 131 

Are there any opportunities for dishonesty in this ? On 
the contrary ; so free from secrecy is it, that if all the la- 
borers of the Ward are in the Union, they are all required 
to join in the deliberations. Nothing can be done which 
the people do not know of and have not inteligently de- 
liberated beforehand. 

Protectivist. But in what light have we deliberated 
upon it? Have we considered any proposition with refer- 
ence to the good of the city or of people outside the Un- 
ion ? 

Response. It is upon this, that we are coming slowly 
to an understanding which will set us right, with refer- 
ence to the motive of your visit. The judgement of mas- 
ses, is surer and more to be trusted than the judgement 
of individuals, when they can agree in council. This 
is an axiom your Unions have proved. The votive fran- 
chise of the Federal Government of America has also prov- 
ed it by a hundred years of experience. The Referendum 
Government of the best and solidest Trade Unions, partic- 
ularly proves it. In the business of contracting a job of 
street cleaning, of the Ward in question, there are not 
more than ten persons. These ten persons can generally 
control the entire street-cleaning Department of the city. 
But even allowing that there are ten to this Ward, they are 
few enough to conspire against the pubUc at large. Now, 
how many laborers would be most apt to constitute a 
Trade Union in that Ward ? 

Pkotectivi st. From twenty to five hundred or more 
according to the population and the necessity, or incentive 
to organization. 

Response. Well, for fairness, we will put it at one 
hundred and fifty members. There are in this Ward, then 



132 A LABOR CATECHISM 

fifteen limes as many persons interested as citizens, in the 
healthiness, cleanliness and decent appearance of its streets, 
as there are Street Commissioners and jobbers who now have 
control. Is it as likely that one hundred and fifty citizens 
living in these streets, subject to diseases from their foul ef- 
fluvia of fill h, would cast their vote against a thorough ren- 
ovation of them, as that ten, who having wealth, live in 
splendor, in better places and are not subject to their ma- 
laria, would do it? Is this Trade Unionist a mere ani- 
mal without any appreciation of health, or decency, and ut- 
terly devoid of capability to judge in matters of his home 
comforts ? The question needs no answer. He has proved 
himself an able judge wherever he has found combination 
possible. Rest assured that such union of Laborers would 
keep their own streets in good order, as the result of unan- 
imous vote of their council. They have two honest, virtu- 
ous incentives, distinct from each other, but necessary to 
good citizenship; — first, to earn a living by their labor, and 
secondly, to do good work, for the health, the convenience, 
and the prosperity of community. 

Pkotectivist. We can admit that they would do it, 
and that they ought to do it. Unionists are close reckoners 
on points of health and home interests. 

Remark. Well, when they attend strictly to all such 
points of home interest, we have political action. It begins 
by an organized protest against all remissness and collusion 
of political labor jobbers, who secretly conspire to keep us 
out of employment and make the innocent people pay con- 
tractors for what is left undone. We have poor street clean- 
ing and idle workmen, as a result. 

Pkotectivist. Granting all this, (and it is political 
action,) how could the Trade Union Administration be 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 133 

made to supersede the present administration of the Street 
Commissioners? 

Answer. It is not pretended they would. Perhaps it 
may never become a duty of the Labor Uuions to commence 
political action by tearing down established forms of gov- 
ernment. In some cases, such extreme measures may be- 
come necessary, on the peace basis ; but what is at this mo- 
ment wanted, is a better guardianship, by the Community 
themselves, over the practical things of home life. Wrong 
iu public circles will always exist, unless the masses of the 
neighbors most deeply interested, take not only the labor it- 
self, but also the supervision of the labor into direct control; 
and become detectives, censors and judges, of every public 
action of their representatives. Doing this, requires study, 
and its means; which are Organization and Discussion, up- 
on these Politico -Economic Incentives. 

Pbotectivist. Can this line of action be applied with 
advantage, by all the Unions ? 

Answer. Just the same. If the Ship Carpenters, or 
the Machinists and Blacksmiths do not apply themselves ur- 
gently to the task of employing their own members at the 
Navy yards, where there are large Government Establish- 
ments waiting to employ them, the necessary work of Gov- 
ernment, will be leased, or jobbed out to contractors, and 
done on the old wage slavery system. So long as the con- 
tract system thrives, the achievement of eight hour?, as a 
day's work, will be impossible; because this system dom- 
inates upon the discci.i ture of the workingmen, caused 
by the profit to the individualist, which accrues from the 
true producer's toil. It must become clear to the student, 
that the cure for this, lies in direct employment by the 
workman's own government, in which he has a common 



134 A LABOR CATECHISM 

interest; — the workman's own Government; that needs the 
work, and is able to pay for it, directly into the work- 
man's hand. It is this same boon of increased wages and 
short hours which a workman has a right to demand, that 
makes the contractor rich, by being exacted from the poor, 
in sweat drenched driblets of slave labor product. 

PnoTECTivisT. Is it possible to apply this theory to 
the advantage of all Trade Unions? 

Answer. It is as applicable to one branch of supply 
of human wants, as to another. You own your government. 
It will do for you anything you bid. But you must cast 
off prejudices and learn to study, deliberate and vote for 
yourselves and your wives and children. The great world's 
contract jobbers are on the alert. They are tasting with a 
jealous relish, the sweet meats of government employment; 
and in order to perpetuate their monopoly over it, and en- 
rich themselves by its appropriations, which they instigate 
by bribed legislation, they deceive and decoy you from 
your duty to yourselves, and to humanity, by frowns of 
assumed superiority, and reproaches of heresy. 

Peotectivist. There is a desire to work on our re- 
ligious prejudices. 

Eespoxse. Yes, but it is only a subterfuge. Ours is 
a question of severe political economy. Religion has little 
to do with it. What we want is more practical business in 
this question, to demonstrate it by solid physics. It can be 
solved only by a better adjustment of purely physical rela- 
tions. The people must be made to understand that this 
labor movement is intrinsically free both of questions of 
morality and of religion. Political economy is its province. 
To attribute to it the province of ethics or religion is to 
give to it functions that are entirely foreign and will only 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 135 

retard its action. It rests solely upon the application of 
the means, mechanical and otherwise of producing the 
most in quantity, of life s necessaries, with the least labor; 
and the equitable distribution of the same, on the same 
principle. It* the horticulturist neglect his plants, they 
become rigid; the earth bakes around their stalks and they 
soon choke with weeds, or die of drought ; but if he wa- 
ters and weeds them with care and supplies them with 
such fertilizers as furnish the proper chemical constitu- 
ents of their growth, there is no further question as to 
their success. They will produce flowers and. fruits m al- 
most mathematical proportion to the labor and science, 
but particularly the science bestowed upon them. The 
horticulturist thrives and is happy with his green plants, 
flowers and fruits. "What has this to do with any question 
of morality or religion. There is a strong question of e- 
conorny involved, inasfar as the gardener's happiness and 
material interests are concerned; but nature never ^tops to 
consider whether these plants weie reared in the midst of 
bia-phemies or of songs of praise. Nature never stops to 
consider consequences only in the physiced or scientific- 
mechanical point of view. Wisdom dictates that the re- 
sult should be exactly known before the cause that produ- 
ces that result is applied. The solution of the Labor Prob- 
lem involves the stern study of causes and effects. Nature 
deals in no hap-hazards nor speculations. Her laws are as 
rigid and uncompromising as they are immutable ; and she 
punishes every physical error because it is an error, and 
without regard to the innocence of the tears that fall. 

The fact is, the laws of nature are not the laws of ethics, 
but rather of mechanics; since it is only through instru- 
ments that our productive labor can be accomplished. Na- 



136 A LABOR CATECHISM 

ture's work is severe and exact in all its details. If we in- 
vent a labor-saving machine capable, with one mairs di- 
rection, of performing the work of one hundred men, and 
these hundred persons, who formerly earned their living 
doing this work by hand, are wise enough to manage the 
labor-saving instrument themselves, they will get a living 
for ninety nine times less trouble than before, minus the 
wear and tear of machine. But if we allow a monopolist to 
usurp to himself the usufruct of this labor-saving machine, 
he will, with its labor, turn out upon the streets to starve, 
ninety nine of the hundred workmen, keeping one to oper- 
ate it; and after paying the one man his wages and defray- 
ing the expenses of the wear and tear, rent &c. he re- 
mains master of all the profits which were formerly paid 
the ninety nine men now idle, in form of wages, or means 
of life. The machine, therefore, actually becomes a curse 
to the ninety nine men, by intercepting their means of life ; 
and all the prayers and tears of ninety nine starving fami- 
lies will avail nothing. Whereas had the one hundred men, 
the proper knowledge of material economies, they would 
co-operate with each other in the management cf the la- 
bor-saving machine, and use it for the common benefit of 
all. This being clear, it becomes equally clear that any 
Community or State, composed of persons who have estab- 
lished a Government for the general good, which allows one 
person to monopolize its instruments of production, and 
thus distress its members, is itself the victim of the gross- 
est ignorance of the law of demand and supply. Nature 
punishes this State, with inevitable results of its own igno- 
rance, which are poverty and crime on the one hand, and 
individual fortunes on the other. 



CHAPTER YI 

AN ENGROSSING QUESTION 
OF GOVERNMENT COAL-MINES, PUBLIC 
HIGHWAYS, AND OTHEH MEANS OF DISTRIB- 
UTING CHEAP FUEL AMONG THE PEOPLE. 



DrscussioN with a Member of the Press 
Oh the Duties of the Newspaper. 

Editor. The scheme of Worktngmeh to subordi- 
nate the Individual to the State, by making government 
assume an economic guardianship over masses, abrogating 
the competitive system entirely, is an innovation upon soci- 
ety to which Editors can scarcely lend their sanction. It 
can only be realized by slow absorption, at best, and the 
independent newspaper is certainly the last thing one could 
think of confiscating. 

Remark. People want an honest and able paper; but 
can such a thing exist under the competitive system? Could 
a Commonwealth operate a newspaper better thnn an indi- 
vidual ? These are our questions. In a competitive state 
of society, if we look at it logically, so long as people al- 
low others, not committed to their welfare to do their 
work, they can scarcely expect it will be done in their in- 



138 A LABOR CATECHISM 

terests. So long as the Editor is the individual proprietor* 
his paper must work for one man; not for many, only so 
far as by pleasing many, it advances the interests of one. 
This is an axiom with exceptions ; but it involves a prin- 
ciple that bears its fruits, of poverty and wealth. It is well 
known that the most flagrant corruptions are those which 
have been upheld by newspapers, subsidized in their inter- 
ests by money. In other words, Editorial Administrations 
when tempted by money, have been known to take con- 
tracts of suppressing evidence against parties who entertain 
a scheme to get money without paying an honest equivo- 
lent for it. Buzzards of the law making process perch in 
our Congress Lobbies. In the contract, and for a given sum, 
newspapers can, unbeknown to the public, sell their honor, 
and become mere, mercenary auxiliaries of any scheme. 
Sometimes it is within their power to so far lose dignity 
as to guffle and rave at all honest resistance, improvising, 
or suppressing arguments. Individuals are apt to decoy 
public opinion, (while we possess no Social Press in the in- 
terests of the majorities,) or succeed by browbeating and in- 
timidating all honest endeavors of justice to secure fair 
play. We believe, that the only true theory for just and 
democratic Government, is on the basis of Party; — Party 
strife; Party differences; friction of principles against each 
other, as set forth by Party. Both Parties are common 
property of humanity. A proposition is launched by the 
people. It meets with favor from a certain class; say the 
Workingmen; who, upon that principle, or Platform of 
principles, involving new and progressive issues, organize 
a Party. Another class embracing the older, competitive 
methods of State, hold to old or non-progressive principles, 
and beccm >s a Party in antagonism to that of the work- 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 139 

ingmen. Justice would say: — ""Discuss these arguments; 
weigh them; prove them; apply them; and I will award 
my verdict according to the result." How can each Party 
get at discussion, without having an Organ in its interest? 
This principle of Party issues has been successfully tried by 
the American Republic; and its natural result has been to 
advance civilization, by hastening the adoption of methods 
of political economy. Having arrived where they are, the 
industrious class of people begin to look at each other for 
mutual assistance in gaining a better livelihood by their la- 
bor; and as the State is the strongest, oldest, richest, and 
most natural Organization, they naturally look hopefully to 
its Government, as the solidest medium for carrying out 
their aims. No idea is entertained of accomplishing much 
of this, immediately ; but if a Government Press cannot be 
had, which is completely in their favor, they ca^, and do, 
organize a Social Party among themselves, and through that 
organization, build up a Social Press. An arrangement of 
this sort will answer the purpose, until the Government 
Press can be created by their power. 

Government ought to own and operate a Newspaper in 
their interest. It is demanded as an Oro-an of their own. 
Working people want it to advocate their cause boldly and 
opeuly. We expect the Party of the capitalists, or the Par- 
ty that has so long held us in bondage, will continue its 
own organization and its own papers. We are willing to 
match arguments, statistics, wit, tact, genius, and relative 
claims, against theirs. But we are not willing to allow 
their papers or those engaged in their interests, to suppress 
our arguments with impunity as they have been doing in 
our helplessness, without having a chance to show our share 
of fact, and force of virtue, in our own behalf. We have 



140 A LABOR CATECHISM 

been treated with intolerance, silenced, kept uneducated, 
uninformed and but half employed until driven by the de- 
grading results into the study of Social Industries, Social 
Government, Social Papers, as sheer necessities. We think 
we have adopted the only means by which ultimately, to 
establish an organ, able and powerful enough to buffet suc- 
cessfully with the great public Press. 

Editor. You can never in our day, effect the estab- 
lishment of a Government Paper. Therefore we have little 
fear that a Labor Party will injure the business of the great 
Science of Journalism. We may rest quite at ease. Jour- 
nalism may rest passive also with regard to the Working- 
men's Party. It appears doubtful whether it succeeds in 
obtaining government aid in co-operation, upon its Utopian 
idea; because the workingmen have not reared political e- 
conomists and statesmen to take the positions of those they 
would displace. 

Remark. Does not this show the need among La- 
boring people, of an honest and powerful Journal that en- 
dorses and advocates labor principles from their depths? 
Workingmen want an energetic and able Organ. They have 
discovered principles for the ground work of a Democracy 
which might break up class. It is clear that the industries 
of a great people are being peddled out at second hand to 
individuals. Working people desire equality, even though 
it assume a form of the Communism of More's Utopia. 

Editor. By what line of argument do you arrive at 
the conclusion that collective management can ever be 
made to succeed in the place of individual management? 

Answer. Many specimens of Labor Associations are 
of themselves vital arguments. Many of the best and most 
efficient and powerful Mutual Aid and Friendly Organiza- 






OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 141 



tions, are those having the means of supplying their mem- 
bers practically, and to the letter, with every thing they 
promise. Many Self-Help Societies exist which are able to, 
and do, guarantee the promise set forth in their rules; that 
is, provided for and enforced, in their government. To he 
a member, therefore, of such a Mutual Aid Society, is to 
enjoy a guaranteed citizenship under a government in which 
every citizen is allowed to deliberate and vote upon the 
management of his own business industries on which him- 
self and his family are dependent for support. A society 
like that of the Amalgamated Carpenters, or the Amalga- 
mated Engineers, and many others, is a bona fide govern- 
ment, based upon the principle of the Referendum Democ- 
racy wherein all new laws alterations and additions must 
be submitted to the entire membership, for approval or re- 
jection. These societies are not only doing this, but they 
are practically, and in this mutual way, taking upon them- 
selves the ownership, so to speak, of each other. They are 
both the government and the supply sources of their cit- 
izens, that is, members. Success of their government, 
therefore, like that of any other government, depends upon 
the education of the voters ; — their intelligence. As soon 
as they shall determine to launch out upon an enterprise 
of their own, this business becomes a co-operation of every 
individual member of the whole society. This is the natu- 
ral result of any Referendum Democracy. Citizens them- 
selves, assume and execute the right to ratify or veto any 
law or project before it goes into force. Citizens take to 
themselves the functions of Presidents, Dictators, and 
Kings. 

Editor. Can you state an instance, showing how this 
can be applied ? 



142 A LABOR CATECHISM 

Answer. Supposing the Coal Miners' Association, 
after passing through all the vicissitudes of that species of 
warfare their union entails, should at length become so 
thoroughly combined, as to open a Mine of their own. The 
question immediately arises as to the method of effecting 
this. The idea of the Miners operating a concern as large 
as a Mine, involves many difficulties. It requires mining 
science, strict business management, a high discipline over 
the work of every department, and a submission on the 
part of all, to the authority of those they have vested in 
control. Substitution, in fact, of collective, for individual 
control in the business of Mining Coal. In it lies a difference 
kindred to that which exists between monarchy and de- 
mocracy; for the individual control of the present system, 
is a near approach to absolute despotism. Co-operation of 
the Miners to work for themselves, and enjoy, in common 
with themselves, the product of their labor, is as democrat- 
ical as communism. Now mere theory is very beautiful and 
plausible so long as it remains a theory ; but when one 
comes to apply it practically, it generally fails and contin- 
ues to fail until we become old in experience; until new of- 
ficers have learned to take the places of the old, and the 
new enterprise becomes an Institution, assumes forms, 
habits, systems, by which ail its details may act harmoni- 
ously, in order that the whole scheme may produce the 
largest dividend. It is not, therefore, to be supposed that 
these Miners can ever succeed in obtaining a Mine, and op- 
erating it in their own interests, by mere social combina- 
tion. 

Miners have only one way by which this co-operation 
can be effected ; — the ballot. When these Miners become 
so numerous and so well organized, as to wield a strong 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 143 

political power, they can demand of the Legislature or of 
Congress, that this mining property now used as an instru- 
ment of oppression of one, and of profit to another, and 
these Miners' labor, now used to accumulate wealth, and 
aggregate it into focuses of monopoly, carrying with and 
for it, their vote by proxy, shall be conducted at once in 
the interest of the people in general, and of the Mining 
Fraternity in particular. The only way then, by which 
this change can be effected, is by political action. The 
mining property must belong to the State; and the State 
must employ the Miners. The Miners will possess a pow- 
erful Trade Organization, the same as now, and this soci- 
ety must jealously watch and work, giving its votes to 
none but those who are both qualified and disposed to con- 
trol these Mines honestly, and in the interests of the Min- 
ers, who are the people. This is the only means by which 
the hard working Miner can even expect, ever to enjoy an 
equal standing, or a generous appreciation of his toil. 

Editor. Your argument digresses from the subject. 
What has the Editor to do with the affairs of Miners liv- 
ing hundreds of miles away in the wilderness? 

Response. Everything. From the moment the Min- 
ers' Organization assumes power and declares for this prin- 
ciple, it becomes a cogent advocate of a new Political Econ- 
omy. It begins to look about for a Press, commited to its 
interest. Its action becomes the subject matter of News- 
paper talk. The proposition that the State shall assume 
the control of Mines, involves the great Coal Supply; which 
is a question of more than ordinary magnitude. 

Editor. But it is communism; arrant, cantankerous 

communism. 

Remark. Call it that, or co-operation, or political 



144 A LABOR CATECHISM 

economy, or statesmanship. There is no more communism 
in it, tlian is throwing up a redoubt, by a national army, for 
the defence of citizens. There is not a whit more commu- 
nism about it than you will find, in the Supreme Court of 
JurisprudeiTce. When a holocaust like the Chicago fire 
takes place, the people become panic stricken ; and there be- 
ing no discipline, fall upon one another, or become the prey 
oftheives. It is then that their government steps to the 
rescue, and order comes out of confusion ; the hungry are 
fed, the injured cared for. This is the work of govern- 
ment. What is wiser? What more effective ? Yet it is 
the very communism that horrifies the Editor. When 
thievish coasters made a piracy of wrecking, our vessels 
felt a double dread of shipwreck; — dread of the accident 
of shipwreck itself, and. dread of pillage by marauders; — but 
now, the people are wiser, better organized, better states- 
men, better business managers. They are better commu- 
nists if you insist upon the term. Statesmanship and com- 
munism then become synonymous terms. Why ? because 
government has stopped all this scoundrelism by establish- 
ing light-houses, posts of succor, and vigilance officers, 
who patrol the shores night and day; and with fog horns, 
life boats and daring experts, are already regarded by hon- 
est people as guardians of their lives and fortunes. Why 
do you not cry out against this procedure, and stamp it as 
communism? Yet Government Mines coming to the res- 
cue of the people are no worse. 

Editor. Because it bears no adequate comparison with 
this gigantic proposition to drive out individual companies, 
who now own the Mines. Companies have started the coal 
business at great risk and cost. It would force government, 
already burdened with other duties, to assume the cares, 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, 145 

and responsibilities of the whole coal supply. Besides, in 
most of the cases you have cited, the villainy was aggres- 
sive and predatory. The law makes no provisions for thieves 
and wreckers. One object of the law, establishing safety for 
ships, was to rid the country of thieves. 

Remark. It was to destroy the traffic of individual- 
ist freebooters, and to establish safety for the general com- 
munity. So far as this branch of the principle is concerned, 
it is the triumph of con-fraternal, over individual rule. 

Editor. But how does the principle apply to the 

Mines ? 

Response. Is not the mining of fuel for the people as 
necessary a business as the coast commerce ? Is it not far 
more so? A large majority of the citizens engaged in this 
business are the working people, A small minority arc those 
who employ them. They are indeed very few proportion- 
ately. Yet this insignificantly small minority are actually 
allowed to wreck the masses, in a traffic that is as rapacious, 
as cold blooded, and far more deadly. They are allowed 
to set their own prices and force the poor Miners to work 
under ground, amid dangers, the recital of which shocks the 
ears of the courageous. They are allowed to reduce their 
condition to a state worse than slavery. When a slave 
grew old he was maintained by his owner. When wound- 
ed or sick, likewise. The true slave, therefore, was spared 
the responsibility of self support. But when the Miner or 
his helper is thus disabled, he is discharged as worthless 
and left to die. Sick women, the wives of these poor men, 
are known to have been driven out of their masters' huts in 
default of payment of rent, and forced to plod homelessly 
and bare foot with hungry, tattered children, to perish in 
the snows of >vinter. Rates of wanes have been allowed to 



146 A LABOR CATECHISM 

be systematically reduced until the men, frantic with ap- 
proaching wreck, sought relief in strikes which served this 
minority with an excuse to have them arrested or shot 
down as rioters. The very brutality of this class law, 
known as the riot act of Pennsylvania made the men reck- 
less, and in their ignorance of wiser expedients, doubtless 
caused the predatory career of the Molly Maguires, and 
other ruffianism. Then came the wholesale hanging of 
these men, which was almost immediately followed by the 
gigantic railroad strike in July 1877. This will be follow- 
ed by deeper organization, tenderer co-sympathies, and 
more powerful Amalgamation. Meantime the capitalists 
who have grown mighty by thus exacting wealth from 
the over toil of their poor imbruted men, are busy fortify- 
ing themselves with class laws. It is thus that the chris- 
tian spirit of love is being falsified in a christian land. It 
is a continuous rumble of struggling, incongruous, negative 
forces that know not each others' welfare because the 
slaves of self-protection and individualism. Unless the 
Public Press opens its columns in the advocacy of a reme- 
dy, this state of bad management and misunderstanding, 
must lead to still more fearful rioting, if not to all the hor- 
rors of a civil war. 

Editor. What step is the safest for a paper to take 
in order to most effectually reconcile both parties ? 

Answer. An Editor is supposed to understand his 
own business situation, best. We can only say that the 
Coal Mines and the Rail Roads and Canals leading from 
them to the people, must become common property. This 
is sufficient. It has been resolved upon by all the impor- 
tant Labor Congresses of the world; and rest assured the 
struggle will go on, until the Socialisms of all countries 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 147 

become numerous enough to take this strong hold by trea- 
ty or by storm. 

Editor. For us to take the part of such a radical and 
revolutionary movement, would of course distroy our busi- 
ness speedily. 

Respoxse. By no means. The most widely known 
Daily of New York is in the habit of showing the feasibili- 
ty of this plan of the workers. But the laboring classes 
will not wait for tardy appeals from the capitalist Press. 
They are now busy, creating papers of their own. The 
great conflict has actually begun ; and it is too interesting 
and important to become weary in good works. 

Editor. If the Miners and Farmers want to have 
the Coal Mines and Railroads worked by government in- 
stead of individuals or operators, as at present, they evi- 
dently will require the help of the Press. They will have 
to organize themselves into a political power, and create 
centres, or posts, for stumping the country ; and by har- 
angue and newspaper labors, show the light and dark 
spots of their subject. Now if they had the tact, and 
steady determination to really organize this thing, there 
is something in it ; and it is quite possible that newspa- 
pers might at length see a clue which they could follow 
without losing their subscribers. Before this can be done 
however, the Miners and all those interested in govern- 
ment Mines and Thoroughfares, must do much pioneer 
work. They must outgrow their habit of wrangling. 

Remark. Here then we have the Editor convin- 

ced; but without the energy to venture an idea or a pen- 
ny in advocacy of a great proposition involving a ques- 
tion not only of fuel for his fire, and of reasonable freight 
tariffs and passenger fares, but of slavery of the human 



148 A LABOR CATECHISM 

race ! What can be expected of these work people while 
their issues stand friendless ? They feel sometimes forlorn 
and often frenzied, reflecting upon the apathy of those who 
ought to be their friends. It is this that cultivates a spirit 
of alternate despondency and malignity, which manifests it- 
self periodically in those dreaded spasms that sometimes 
take the shape of industrial catalepsies and swoons, and 
sometimes of emotional whirlwinds and tornadoes. Every 
one of these paroxysmal pangs of the laboring classes, 
which are growing more numerous year by year, serves as 
a fulcrum whereby to get new leverage under this com- 
munism you abhor, and hoist it into view. Seeing the Ed- 
itor in an attitude of mercenary indecision, and recreant to 
everything but self interest makes them morbid and radi- 
cal ; and they rush to extremes ; — even to the borders of so- 
cial cataclysm. This is why they begin to demand a Gov- 
ernment, Paper. This is why they may soon determine to 
have the Mines and Railroads themselves. It is one of the 
keys of the phenomena of labor agitation. The apathy, and 
indicision of the Public Press has perhaps done more than 
the open action of masters, to aggravate and exasperate the 
men ; for they very naturally mistrust a collusion between 
the masters and the Press. 

Edttoe. Journalists are like other folks ; and they 
sometimes stand in need of the joys of conversion before 
they are themselves fitted to take up their cross and follow. 
Give us an explanation of the workings of government Coal 
Mines and Railroads. 

Response. It will probably be a long time before the 
people are blessed with a thing so unselfish as government 
Coal Mines and Railroads ; but when that boon is realized, 
the effects will show as follows : — A Government is a co- 






OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 149 

operative society. It has functions strictly industrial, which 
can be classed with no other style of industrial functions. 
Now, a discrepancy prevails among Editors. They are al- 
most universally in favor of any industrial co-operalive so- 
ciety and equally averse to a government enterprise; while 
fundamentally, these are one and the same thing. This dis- 
crepancy is not seen in \\\e principle, hut in the numbers in- 
volved. If a score of Miners could Luy a Coal Field, and 
work it themselves on a small scale, no one would object ; 
but if all the Miners propose to own all the Mines, there is 
a noise about it. Yet it would be better for both Miners and 
people. The same is tine of Canals and Railroads for carry- 
ing the coal. A co-operative society is a government, as 
much as Government itself. A great advantage, then, cer- 
tainly would be felt, first by the people at large. We all 
have an interest in the Post Office, and the Public Schools; 
because they take charge of certain departments of their ne- 
cessary business and are paid without favoritism from the 
Commonwealth of the land. Exactly the same interest will 
be felt, if they own and operate the Coal Mines themselves; 
likewise the Railroads, in common. They would net toler- 
ate a monopoly. They would watch with eager interest, 
over their own "Works. Year after year they would send 
picked men to the Legislatures and to Congress, charged to 
look after their household interest of fuel and fires. They 
would gradually grow by this practical urgent of study 
and become peaceful citizens. Under the present company 
rule, what has a Congressman to say ? Influences are of- 
ten strongest on the s ! de of wrong. He can sell his vote 
against the people oftentimes, in favor of the Coal and Rail- 
road Companies' lobby Legislation, for which mil'ions are 
often accumulated in pools. But the interest is so second- 



ir.0 A LABOR CATECHISM 

hand, so distant, so vague, that the poor people are hood- 
winked and bewildered. Could it go so auy longer if the 
government owned these Mines and the avenues leading to 
and from them? On the contrary ; you would see protect- 
ive organizations among the people which you do not see 
now. They would study and inquire into the causes of ev- 
ery variation of the price of coal. The housewife would 
he the one to demand an inquiry. The political club would 
pass, and publish resolution?, and appoint investigating 
committees. If things still went wrong, the members of 
Congress from its district would be required to bring the 
matter before Congress; and if the mischief were not speed- 
ily rectified, persons more faiihful and efficient would find 
a seat the ensuing sessions. But the healthiest assurance of 
it all is, that when the business is based upon the Principle 
of collective instead of individual ownership and control, it 
will be the 'Principle itself, not its details, that will form 
the basis of study and organization. At present, there ex- 
ists but one incentive of citizenship. This adds another; 
that of being employed bj themselves. Mere details are 
amendable at will ; but a great Principle stands eternal. 
Not a year rolls round, that does not intensify the popular 
love of this great and successful Principle, as exemplified 
in the Public School system, the Parks, Fire Departments, 
the Belgian Hierhwavs; Yet a public Coal Mine is but an- 
other application of the same principle. Under the present 
system, as has already been seen, neither the Miner nor the 
consumer of fuel has an accorded right to ask why wages 
should not be reduced so low as to force men to a stage of 
starvation, or why the coal should not be raised to ten dol- 
lars per ton. The stagnant apathy of the people in such 
cases of outrage, is something sickening. They will not 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 151 

only submit to have the price of coal exorbitantly raised 
but they will even take the part of their systematic exact- 
ors and rail against the poor Miners if they chafe and fret 
under their hard lot. But this is a mark of popular submis- 
sion to usage, where no great principle is involved. On the 
whole, it is a good token rather than a bad one. Bring this 
Principle into view, and they will cleave to it with the same 
dogged tenacity; and the propensity once wheeled and re- 
versed, becomes an argument of great power in favor of the 
reform. 

In the second place, the advantage would be felt by the 
Miners themselves. They already possess a Trade Society 
numbering many thousands. These are all voters. They 
are, we will suppose, so organized that they submit, almost 
to a man, to vote for any list of candidates of their own 
choosing. They are powerful enough to carry an election 
in certain localities. Add to this the fact that all other 
Trade Unions and Co-operative Associations in the country 
are with them in principle, that the Farmers are not with- 
out sympathy, and that they have a complete party Organ- 
ization, and you see no inconsiderable force arrayed and 
concentrated on the principle. Such forces will work to 
cheapen coal, to raise the wages of Miners and Laborers, to 
shorten the day's work and to destroy the profit or specu- 
lative incentive. Men claim that the profit incentive, and 
the money wasted in bad management which a Government 
Mine would avoid by more permanent and scientific appli- 
ances, would more than make up for the difference in their 
wages and shorter time which they need, to secure them 
health and 'long life. Achieving this difference in wages 
and time, is raising them from bondage to freedom. So 
much for the Miners and Railroad employes themselves. 



152 A LABOR CATECHISM 

But people at large have an additional interest in the cheap- 
ening of coal. The Workingmeu do not expect to live by 
any other system than that of wages ; at least lor the pres- 
ent. Honorable recompense for a fair day r s work is thought 
by most Workingmen to be productive of about as much 
liberty and happiness as they can require, so long as they 
do not cringe under a fear of being dismissed. The Mines 
being the property of Government, and they being voting 
citizens, each feels himself a stockholder; which intensifies 
his interest in the work of producing coal for others, who 
are also citizens. There is a feeling always between cit- 
izen and citizen, something akin to mutual care. The spec- 
ulative propensity destroys this. Never till we destroy the 
speculative incentive, or propensity, can we enjoy neighbor 
for neighbor, this feeling of mutual care. Mutual ownership 
of large w r orks tends inevitably toward it. 

Editor. Here you strike a subject of acknowledged 
importance. Journalists who are the closest observers of 
all forms of social combination, mark, that at Labor Con- 
gresses, resolutions are always passed which seem, so for 
as the realization of their import is concerned, utterly ab- 
surd. Perhaps there is not one of the many phenomena of 
this labor imbroglio so obscure as your sweeping proposi- 
tion regarding State Control over what is now Individual 
wealth, and of subordination of the individual to the State, 
body and intellect. Workingmen seem bent on forcing out 
the obvious misnomer which resides in the much mooted 
term "Commonwealth." But in what manner they ever ex- 
pect to realize, each his individual competency, by submit- 
ting to surrender themselves, or by a complete subversion 
of individual proprietorship, is a vexed problem. They 
seem to think that by giving nobody anything, they are all 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 153 

going to realize everything; that while all have everything, 
nobody can have anything! 

Response. We will illustrate this in sweeping prospect- 
ive views of it. There are forty million inhabitants under the 
government of the United States. One business of this in- 
stitution called government, is to watch over and provide 
laws and regulations for the well being of this government 
property which is valued at thirty or forty billions of dol- 
lars. This entire property, now mostly in the hands of in- 
dividuals, is supposed to keep us all employed ; or at least, 
to furnish us all some means of support In fact, this prop- 
erty is all the people possess by which to get a livelihood. 
But under the existing arrangement of this means of living, 
people dependent upon, and eking out a precarious, too of- 
ten dishonest living from this vast property or Common- 
wealth, care very little about each other, or each others' 
happiness. Bickering jealousies and short sighted interests 
prevent it. But supposing the Coal Mines, in all, worth 
100,000,000 were State or Government property ; or, what 
is the same thing, supposing all these Mines were ours, in 
common, instead of being the property of individuals; then 
each one of the 40,000,000 inhabitants of the nation would 
actually own, as his, or her share in citizenship or as a vest- 
ed right, one dollar of value in this Government Property. 
He would have, not a merely nominal, but a bona fide stock 
in public property, to that amount. It would not make 
that citizen rich, to be sure ; but it would make him an act- 
ual stockholder in that property, in common and insepara- 
ble, with the rest, clothed in the true dignity of guaranteed 
rights. He can agitate and protest against any infringe- 
ment of that right. His State becomes a business Co-oper- 
ation or Society; bringing all the mutual interests of neigh- 



154 A LABOR CATECHISM 

bors together, which present private ownership in exclu- 
sive property fails to do. Now let the government own 
also the Railroads of the country. They are worth, say 
$100,000,000 Each citizen then, owns $ 2,50, in Railroads 
as common property. The Cotton, Woolen, and Flouring 
Mills are worth as much as the Railroads. So continue 
adding industry after industry to the government, and you 
continue to augment the value of every citizen's actual, 
guaranteed claim to this property; the management of 
which they then have in their own hands, collectively; or 
may have, if they will organize. When all the various 
properties have been absorbed, each citizen will be worth 
as many dollars as, 40,000,000, (inhabitants) are contained 
in the $40,000,000,000, the value of the property of the 
country; or about 1,000 dollars. This if well managed, will 
support him for life at six or eight hours of labor per day, 
which this business is sure to supply. The result will be 
not only to prompt citizens to augment the value of their 
property, but also a growing demand for mutual care, and 
a steady falling off of the selfish spirit of speculation. These 
ideas are, during the present century, applying very forci- 
bly to the question of Mines. If the Coal Mines were own- 
ed and worked by government, it would behoove all citi- 
zens to watch the methods of their management closely. 
The Miners would sympathize with the citizens and every 
person must feel it his duty to procure the largest amount 
of coal with the least labor and cost, and distribute the 
same, most economically, to every household ; while the 
Miners would receive all they claim through the superior 
economy of government control, and the absorption of 
the speculative spirit of profit. ' 



CHAPTER YII. 



REASONS WHY RAILROADS, CANALS, RAPID 

TRANSIT ROUTES AND TELEGRAPH LINES 

SHOULD BELONG TO THE PUBLIC 

INSTEAD OF INDIVIDUALS. 



Opinions vxteechaxged between members of the 

INDUSTRIAL PaETY AXD OF AN ASSOCIATION OF 
THE IE OX AXD METAL TEADES. 



Brotherhood. There is a subject, too little dis- 
cussed and toe generally suppressed, which touches upon 
the liberty of the people. As a Brotherhood or fraternal 

association of the trade or profession of Steam Engineers, 
a certain society represents not only the family and indi- 
vidual interests of its own members enrolled, but aho the 
interests of many thousands directly and indirectly con- 
nected with them. Thcuo-h :t is difficult to unite mem all 
under one administration they nevertheless, interlink their 
sympathies with the principal organization, because mate- 
rial interests connect, and force them to it. As an instance, 
the Locomotive Engineers control the destiny of many 
outside their profession. When a strike is decided upon, 
it involves the means of life, not only of these experts, but 
also of all the firemen, conductors, baggage men, brakemen, 



156 A LABOR CATECHISM 

clerks, porters even the restaurant people, and the newspaper 
boys, those connected with the fuel supply, and the way la- 
borers on the route, as well as ticket and telegraph agents, 
and numbers indirectly connected with this great business 
along the line of the road. 

Question. How does it happen that so small a num- 
ber as the practical Engineers can command such unlimit- 
ed, not to say despotic influence over large numbers and 
varieties of business ? And when this question is disposed 
of, we would like to hear how they defend themselves, if 
accused, of an outrage upon society, by such an arbitrary 
action as that of ordering a suspension of the people's im- 
portant business of transportation and travel. 

Brotherhood. Your first interrogative is answered 
if you recognize that a trade is worth more, in practical 
business, than a knowledge of accounts. To command a 
complete control of these auxiliaries of the Railroad busi- 
ness, the Engineers have only to organize a small number 
of these mecanicians themselves. Into this brotherhood they 
do not admit any whose reputation is bad, or who have 
not received a certificate of qualification through a regular 
Board of Examination. Such qualification requires the 
practical knowledge of the machinist trade and considera- 
ble knowledge of blacksmithing. Sobriety is required, or 
the man might wreck his train. Long practice in the art, 
and close study of the philosophy and construction of the 
locomotive are required, to make him a perfect master of 
his dangerous but valuable machine. Good nature is re- 
quired, or in some unguarded passion, he might cause the 
destruction of the life and property of many innocent peo- 
ple who are often entirely at his mercy. All these requis- 
ites of a good Engineer considered, there are few, compar- 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 157 

atively. who are competent to pass their examination. Quite 
different is the estimate regarding a Conductor or almost 
any other employe of a Railroad. Any trust worthy busi- 
ness man may soon qualify himself for his work. He be- 
longs to a class of accountants ; Engineers to a class of 
practical scientists. It is true their work besmears them 
and they compare badly in outside appearance with the 
neatly attired Conductor of the train ; but that does not 
diminish their real faculty. In fact, the Engineers are the 
true and responsible masters of trains in motion. Conse- 
quently a closely organized Brotherhood of all the Engi- 
neers of the country can influence the destiny of every in- 
dividual employed. 

Your next interrogative regarding the right of Engi- 
neers to suspend an lirfmense public business, requires more 
elucidation. 

Labor Party. Society is like the human body ; — 
formed of great numbers of attributes. It has its vital, its 
circulating, its repairing, its nervous systems. If you cut 
off an artery or vein of the strong man even at the extrem- 
ity of the limbs, you arrest simultaneously the life action 
at the other extremity. If you destroy a nerve, the death 
of that delicate organ of vitality may cause also muscle 
and bone to palsy and die. If you kill the sense of sight 
the entire organism also gropes in dnrkness, and intelli- 
gence withers because it has lost its means of brilliancy 
and glory. Any injury to the least as well as the greatest 
of the innumerable composite parts of this exquisite struct- 
ure, is an outrage to the whole. 

So also of society. It is a delicate structure composed 
of innumerable sympathetic tissues. If you arrest the 
healthy action of the circulating system, you outrage the 



158 A LABOR CATECHISM 

whole organism. If you, whose peculiar profession ren- 
ders you competent to control the interests of greater 
numbers than yourselves, take advantage of a fortuitous 
power and order a strike or a suspension of one of the 
great vital industries of society, you instantly cause panic, 
passion, suffering, to thousands of innocent people a great 
distance away from the scene. Stop the freight lines, and 
you instantly threaten great numbers of worthy people 
with starvation, in the cities and towns. Yon give advan- 
tage to organized speculators on market provisions, who 
immediately run up the prices of articles which your 
freight lines convey to market and thus aggravate mono- 
ply. Indeed, what else but monopoly in one of its forms 
is such action of a handful of organized men whose arbi- 
trary, perhaps impassioned decision thus dictates the desti- 
ny of ten fold their number ? 

Brotherhood. Does the Industrial Party condemn 
the action of this fraternity, in seeking an innocent combi- 
nation of its members ? You speak of society as though 
it were all harmony; as though its relations were all per- 
fect, and no internal discords existed! But men organize 
for self protection. A systematic pressure is brought a- 
gainst the fraternity which is a mutual benefit society. Its 
object is to help the member in times of need by obtaining 
for him positions, or pecuniary and other friendly assist- 
ance. A strike is always a last resort. They have re- 
cource to it only when all other means of self-help are cut 
off and they find tnemselves face to face before an adver- 
sary with bloodshot eyes glaring with greed. This insati- 
ate creature exists in form of a trio of Monopolies; — the 
owners of all the Railroads, Telegraphs, and Rapid Transit 
lines, who are mter-combined and bent on reducing wages 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. . 159 

of all their employes, so far as to completely disarm them, 
while they refuse to reduce fares and freight tariffs in pro- 
portion, for the benefit of the people. 

Labor Party. Monopoly ! Ah ; here you touch 

the true fountain of difficulty. It is one monopoly, array- 
ed against another, with the odds for you in the name of 
justice. But the difficulty in our comparison just now 
was that it was intended for society as it should be; not 
for society, as it is ; — disrupted and contorted by compe- 
tism. .In the body there are no elements at war. It is peace. 
Not a fibre moves that does not thrill in harmony with 
its neighbor fibres. When this body is in health, all its 
members co-operate. Nerves, muscles, tendons, veins, ar- 
teries and the organs of mind and sense co-work in practic- 
al, genial association. No tissue lies idle: but all work. 
The force and zest of each bears an exact proportion to 
the task of the whole. The body has its canals, telegraphs 
railroads, and rapid transit routes for transmitting intelli- 
gence, aliment, and exhausted material, to and from all 
parts, where required. It has engineers, farmers, fuelers, 
designers, telegraph operators who stand faithfully on duty 
and never quarrel. Its operatives, humble and preten- 
tions, number millions. No single set of them is in the 
habit of concocting a strike for higher pay and of suspend- 
ing work, throwing others out of employment and cutting 
off the means of support. The body is a sensitive common- 
wealth which is unaccustomed to brook such spasms. 
They are death. Every member stands at his post, work- 
ins:, reciprocating composite essentials of a beautiful unity 
whose glory is mutual love, protection, enjoyment in com- 
mon, of all the good things of the general whole. 

Brotherhood. You overlook a serious decrepancy 



160 A LABOR CATECHISM 

in your comparison. We are associated in self defense, 
from evils of society as it is ; not in harmony with an im- 
agined society as it should be. We find little, if any, of 
the harmonious co-operation you depict in your illustration. 
Hard experience teaches, to our chagrin, that the actual 
condition of industrial government is the reverse of your 
glowing example. Instead of common sympathy that 
thrills life in a living hody, there is distracting rivality. In- 
stead of mutual co-operation, or sharing in common, of the 
labors and products of a railroad, or telegraph, or ship- 
ping business, there is one individual or one set of them, 
to whom is given an unlimited, legalized power to domi- 
nate the actual workers, perform no work himself, and ar- 
bitrarily, and too often without the least sympathy, dictate 
to them drudgery and poor compensation. Instead of mu- 
tual ownership, or life interest in a common whole, the in- 
terest is wholly lavished upon this central object of favor, 
who becomes a despot; and all his Engineers, Telegraphers, 
Captains and other assistants become his slaves. Where 
mutual co-work and inter-profit resides in the body, noth- 
ing but jealousy and distrust resides in the greater world- 
ly body, against which this Brotherhood is arrayed in self- 
defense. Your comparison is poor; for in the place of love, 
self-support and care, there is little but short-sighted s df- 
interest which engenders a long train of misallotments and 
their entailments of suffering and petty warfare. 

Industrial Party. We understand, then, that the 
cause of your dilemma is the fact, that this associated 
Brotherhood has no common possession of the things to 
which they contribute their labor. The living body is an 
industry acting in obedience to the inflexible laws of na- 
ture. Nature gives each worker a share of the product of 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 161 

his labor, which is amply sufficient for his wants. Nature 
therefore, or law takes the form of government; and all her 
employes know the law and conform to it. They, from self 
interest, obey a principle; you, crucifying the principle, 
must obey a master. Obedience to a natural principle of 
which he is a part, makes the worker a co-partner in its 
business. Obedience to a master whom we know to be 
prompted only by selfish thoughts for selfish ends, makes 
the same worker a slave ; because in the one case he is, 
himself, a part and parcel of the principle he obeys. In 
the other he is under abject control of foreign interests. 
Nothing then, can remove the difficulty but the assumption 
by government of the ownership and management of these 
thoroughfares and their operation upon a principle, instead 
of seltish, individual interest. As soon as this is done, 
your Brotherhood will cease to order strikes, or otherwise 
cause a disruption of the business they are entrusted to 
execute. An instance of the intense, natural interest, a- 
fising from obedience to a principle, rather than an indi- 
vidual, you will observe in these railroad strikes, wherever 
they threaten to disrupt the business of the Tost office. 
The Brotherhood own this letter carrying business in com- 
mon with other citizens; just as one member of the body 
owns an interest in another; "each for all and all for each." 
When a strike occurs, this sympathetic feeling shows itself. 
In the extensive strike of 1877, orders from the leading 
councils of the strikers were issued, forbidding the stop- 
page of trains carrying the mails. There was a strong feel- 
ing on the part of the men in favor of the mail trains. 
This was greatly wondered at by many; and was generally 
observed. It was regarded by some, as strange, that the 
mail trains were systematically continued and protected by 



1C2 A LABOR CATECHISM 

the strikers themselves. Inspection of the principle in- 
volved, however, shows that it was no marvel whatever. 
These men owned a certain co-operative share of the con- 
tents of the mail train which carried the letters through 
government. 

It would have heen greatly against their interest to have 
waged war against the vehicles of the government Post Of- 
fice, Of all the numerous articles of commercial inter- 
change conveyed by those trains, nothing was theirs in 
common but the Postal Service of government. This he- 
longed to the Body proper, of Society ; and was in part, 
their own. Feeling towards it was harmonious. They felt 
toward it a protective impulse. To injure it, would have 
been inconsistent with their possessorship in it as fellow 
citizens; and would have been a violation of an instinct of 
self defense. So, if the Railroads themselves, the business 
of which they ordered a suspension, had been likewise, 
property of government, a sinrlar interest would have ar- 
ticulated between them, and they would have taken far. 
different measures from a strike to redress their grievances. 
They would have sought the helm of political power. 

Brotherhood. It would be disastrous to attempt a 
sudden change to political action ; for while the change 
were taking place, the organization would lose its cohesive- 
ness and perish of discouragement. 

Response. It is not at all advisable to attempt any 
sudden change. Let them slowly but earnestly introduce 
a certain plank of political tactics and be satisfied to real- 
ize trophy after trophy by it, and your members will all 
feel an increasing incentive or impulse to organization such 
as they never before experieaced. 

Brotherhood. State the character of the plank you 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 163 

refer to. Persons who have been badly treated, by ev- 
ery political party, are not accustomed to venture upon 
politics. 

Response. That relating to the ownership of Thor- 
oughfares by government. Throughout the Municipal, 
State and General governments / there occur many enormous 
industries, such as the Canals, Public Highways, Telegraphs 
and so-called Rapid Transit Routes in our cities and towns. 
This work should come within the power of labor organ- 
izations. 

Brotherhood. What advantage to us, has this labor 
over any other? It is all of it labor under masters; and 
men are worse used when so employed than in any other 
way. There is no advantage in working for govern- 
ment. 

Reply. There is seen an immense advantage in it, 
when understood ; which we want to carefully consider. 
In the first place Government railroads, telegraphs and 
rapid transit routes are not individual property. The la- 
bor done with them is ordered by the general Community, 
when they are the property of the public instead of indi- 
viduals. Votes which created the Heads of all the great 
public Departments were votes of workingmen. These 
men are employes of the people. Being yourselves the 
Community, and these public works in the interest of the 
Community, they are yours. It is no longer an individual 
industry for one man or company, but a Community of in- 
terests. Hence the workingmen have a right to demand 
to be employed upon them ; and it is a right of the engi- 
neers to turn the force of their organization toward secur- 
ing better positions than they now hold. A co-posses- 
sorship in a government Railroad would bring back home 



164 A LABOR CATECHISM 

feelings. This is their first and only incentive to organiza- 
tion ; and when they wheel their force in line and combat 
for this guaranty of labor as a political principle, they will 
see, opened before them, a mightier love of organization 
than they now realize. It will, perhaps, be strong enough 
to sweep all into organization, instead of a part. The pro- 
curement of daily food and shelter is the first incentive 
that actuates all creatures. Lions, tigers, bears, dogs, birds, 
reptiles, fight for it. Men kill each other for it. The 
means of perpetuating existence, is worth thinking, organ- 
izing, or even fighting for. By the nature of things, it is 
the first iucentive of Community among men. Had we 
all we could eat, drink, wear and require for shelter, freely 
furnished us, and were not in need of protection, we should 
not need government. Wanting these, we depend more 
or less upon a government to supply them. This is natu- 
ral ; and a government that supplies but a part is defective. 
Men want something more than protection. Food, clothes 
homes, labor, are necessary; and governments are learning 
to supply them as well as protection, which has hitherto 
been supposed the exclusive function of government and is 
yet the chief theme of Political Economists. Government 
in fact, is a combination for mutual protection and support ; 
and its legitimate duty is to supply citizens a sufficiency of 
both. All functions of government, then, are greater than 
the functions of trade combinations; because the govern- 
ment is for the mutual protection and support of all cicizens. 
Yet while individuals and companies are wrongfully get- 
ting the political control of it, and working it in their in- 
terests, thereby excluding the true w r orkers from its protec- 
tion and support, these workers are organizing to secure 
slavery for themselves, instead of independence. Were they 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, 165 

to work directly for government, as they would, if at work 
directly for such Public Highways, they would work for 
themselves; and would then work for a true Common- 
wealth. Continuing to work for outside companies and in- 
dividual managers who have no common interest in tbeim 
their labor continues to be what is called wage slavery, and 
your organization is only a means of enforcing the privi- 
lege of remaining in this bondage. If they discharge peo- 
ple from their service, it is because their mastery over 
them is absolute : and they repudiate their claim to enslave- 
ment by disowning them No wonder that more than one 
half of those who work at the various trades are unable to 
see a sufficient incentive to combination to keep thtm or- 
ganized. All that which in the government, or co-opera- 
tive industry is paid extra, to make men comfortable, or 
is abated irotn their hours to make them manly and inde- 
pendent, in other words, all that which government em- 
ployment offers them in form of increased wages and short 
hours, goes to the individual or company, in form of protit 
or dividend. With the toiler is left nothing but reduced 
wages and social inequality. 

Brotherhood. Among other points of interest ap- 
pears a hint that there are two separate and distinct incen- 
tives of citizenship; both attributes of a good state of soci- 
ety ; that in ordinary citizenship, or where government 
does not furnish labor ns well as protection, only one is 
used; and that to organize upon these two incentives is to 
quicken the hopes of humanity. 

Labor Party. Our first incentive is the very natu- 
ral one of self protection, and causes us to be constantly 
watching for means of obtaining food and shelter. The 
second incentive is that which we all, as citizens, feel, in 



166 A LABOR CATECHISM 

favor of good government. Every citizen feels it. Even 
the individual managers of public industries, however much 
they may be actuated by personal interest, naturally feel 
actuated to some extent by this incentive. But it is not 
powerful enough to combine all. The best part of the peo- 
ple are uncombined. Disgusted with the dishonesty of pub- 
lic rulers and regarding them with a feeling, that to meddle 
with such corruption, is disgrace, they remain away from 
the polls, and thus permit the country's corrupters to carry 
out their designs unmolested. Some of our good Labor 
Organizations may be said to rank among these. They 
have voted to abstain from politics. Doing this, is virtually 
voting not to interfere or in any way stop the career of such 
demagogues, associated to sap tlio foundations of republi- 
canism, and who are leading work-people into captivity, 

The second incentive with vague abstractions, and theo- 
ries, has never been strong enough to keep government 
pure. Exclusively protective governments have resulted in 
little more than guarding frontier lines, nationalism, jeal- 
ousies, and war. Under its rule, republican governments 
may seem solid, and may excel abject monarchies in point 
of enterprise, but there is lacking the first and stronger in- 
centive to pure government. We find lacking the incentive 
to a citizenship which provides the peaceful business element 
of supply. We find lacking another incentive to combina- 
tion, strong enough to force all chosen Officers of State, to 
farm productive industries and to distribute their proceeds 
at cost among the people. There is lacking a determination 
to kill the commissioning system of executing work; to sup- 
plant it with one that works without proxy, from govern- 
ment, direct to people ; — the first incentive to citizenship, 
which will make governments integral, and eternal. 



CHAPTER Yin. 



GENERAL "VIEWS, FEELINGS 

AND EXPRESSIONS OF THE WEALTHY AND 

HIGH IN POWER, CONCERNING POLITICO- 

INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION. 



Colloquy between ax 

Advocate of a Political Party and a 

Conservative Doctor oe Laws. 



Political Economist. Professional men in law 

and jurisprudence have been giving attention to the move- 
ment of the Working People, and observe some very start- 
ling points and propositions in certain Circulars issued by 
those of the Atlantic Seaboard Cities, but nothing remark- 
r.bly radical or advanced in any of those of the West. 
What is the cause of this striking difference? 

Industrial Party. The radical nature of the Labor 
propositions is always in proportion with the age of the the- 
atre of congregated Labor. But your discovery is a little 
late ; for the West has already taken up the subject from its 
depths. The Labor Principle, — that is to say, the Points 
at issue of the Labor Movement assume a stronger tone as 
the Working people study their Question, and as their Or- 
ganizations grow. The movement is natural to all races and 



1G8 A LABOR CATECHISM 

all lands. It belongs alike in the East and in the West; and 
as it develops, will not confine itself to localities. 

Question. What is meant by the term Workingmen, 
or Workpeople ? 

Labor Party. They are used in a generic sense, ap- 
plying to both sexes, and to all grades of useful labor, in- 
cluding teachers and operators of Telegraphs, or of Music- 
al Instruments, as well as of hammers, lathes and plows. 
The term " Working Classes," or " Working People " in 
labor phrase, sounds awkward; and the term "Working- 
men" has obtained a recognition as a plain, homely, and 
expressive word, which includes both sexes. Our English 
language is not as clear in regard to this expres>ion as the 
German, French or Spanish. We have no simple word 
that translates Arbeiter, or Ouvrier, or Trabajador. In 
Latin, the woid Vir, man, and Mulier, woman, and their 
plurals, were rendered in collective expression by Homo, 
Homines. Our language lacks these significant and con- 
ciliatory terms. We therefore trust you will not find fault 
with homely generalities. 

Political Economist. Why is this movement called 
essentially the Labor Problem ? 

Labor Party. Because established fact, or science 

comes from mechanics. Voluntary effort, or effort toward 
the accomplishment of an object, is labor. Theory is un- 
e'laborated effort and is not, ar:d cannot be science until it 
is made palpable to our senses. To do this, instruments 
are required. The moment a wish, ideal, or theory uses an 
instrument, however rudamental, with which to build for 
itself a palpable shape, it borrows from mechanics. Me- 
chanical instrumentalities are, therefore, the means of sci- 
ence. Human hands alone, can shape and direct these 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 169 

instruments. Such is Labor ; and as the doing of this la- 
bor involves the means of existence, it becomes the most 
important of all questions, how labor and its product shall 
be economized and allotted. 

Political Economist. The position that science de- 
rives from mechanics, needs explanation. 

Answer. It can be proved, even admitting that all 
knowledge originates in intuition and genius ; though this 
is by no means the case; for many valuable things are 
found out by mere fortuity. Discovery of principles which 
combine and form a sewing machine, a history, or a tel- 
egraph, is done by an instrument. The brain is that in- 
strument. It is a species of mechanical instrument. It 
is a mechanism. It is therefore, not the least point in the 
Labor Problem, to prescribe that the brain be rightly cared 
for. Bringing these mechanical devices into palpable form 
and running condition, requires a great variety of mechan- 
ical skill. Agassiz and Humbolt were scientists ; but they 
were also mechanics. They wrought science ; that is, they 
brought knowledge into the world, and shaped and ac- 
commodated it to the perception of others. They could 
not have done this without the aid of mechanical instru- 
ments. Humboldt, in measuring the volume of water in 
river beds and the altitude of mountains, used instruments. 
Agassiz used instruments in his deep sea soundings. Pro- 
fessor Silliraan's Laboratory is a marvel of mechanical art. 
No scientist could develop a theory without great mechan- 
ical skill either in himself or in others. All sciences depend 
directly upon mechanics. 

Political Economist. But the greater part of those 
engaged in this, so called Labor movement, view the Ques- 
tion in a narrower light. 



170 A LABOR CATECHISM 

Answer. If they do, ignorance must excuse their error. 
The truth is, this is not so much a social question as one of 
Political Economy; and its agitation may be stated as pro- 
portionate to the general enlightenment of the human race. 
A story of the grades of human development makes this 
fact clear. 

Political Economist. "Working people are jealous 
of every new invention that capitalists apply to save labor, 
as well as to lengthen life. It is well known that in many 
cases, where life-saving apparatus have been applied to pre- 
vent the cutting out of the lungs, as in the case of the steel 
grinders of Sheffield and in other ways, the men have revolt- 
ed and combined against it as an intolerable innovation. 
It is difficult to see any economy in this, political or person- 
al. 

Labou Paety. There is much meant, which a casual 
observer does not see. Industries necessarily assume forms 
and customs. The usages of the workmen are gradually 
conformed to these; and they have learned, by grim exper- 
ience to keep on the alert ; since oftentimes the least inno- 
vation however valuable, is sufficient to change the custom 
or usage of a particular class of work, and displace the 
workmen. Now, in the case of the Steel grinders, we do 
not attempt to defend them either from a philosophic, or 
hygienic point of view ; but only excuse their action as the 
necessary effect of a current circumstance. It is true that 
the dust of steel when constantly inhaled, is almost certain 
to produce pulmonary disease. The average length of life 
of those engaged in this trade is only thirty years ; and it 
must be regarded as something very desirable to invent 
any attachment, which, without lessening the amount of 
work performed, would lengthen a lifetime from thirty 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. m 

years, the present average, to sixty years, the average of 
the farmers who breathe pure air. 

But the poorest toiler has neither time, nor disposition to 
consider this question of health. He has a family to sup- 
port. For his labor, he receives barely enough to exist from 
week to week. Deprive him of a place to which he is ac- 
customed, and before he can accustom himself to another 
his family must starve. Now the simple alteration propos- 
ed, may so atTcct the steel grinder's vocation tbat it will re- 
quire a more expert, or even a less ingenious hand, to per- 
form the labor, and this may involve bis displacement. A 
dread cf tbese constantly recurring innovations is what ac- 
tuates him to organized resistence. Workingmen have 
been called stupid on account of this resistence; but their 
interest is to handle only such matters as have a practical 
bearing upon their daily means of support. 

Political Economist. You say this whole so-called 
Labor Problem is one of political Economy exclusively. 
It sounds vague. All the world is in the habit of treating 
it as an entirely social affair. Books of vM tbe Socialist Au- 
thors make little mention of political elements in it, and 
treat it as an exclusively Social Question. 

Labor Party. Our Labor Movement is in its infan- 

cy. As it conies out into the broad light of public discus- 
sion it takes a political form, and strikes for Economic E- 
mancipation, 

Lawgiver. It looks like a questionable venture, to 
treat a subject which involves the social happiness of mil- 
lions of families, under the head of Politico-Economics. Do 
you not agree that it is tbe social status of the Working 
class which the movement is trying to elevate? 

Response. "We might question the good taste of wri- 



[12 A LABOR CATECHISM 

ters and thinkers, who give things inappropriate names. 
Tt is politico-pconomic in its true character. Why it is a 
political problem, is because it can only be solved by polit- 
ical means, through the operation of Economical methods. 
Social conditions indicate society at rest; — the avenues by 
which we may enjoy, established. Economical conditions 
indicate society in evolution, or agitation. The producing 
of these means of social enjoyment is, and usually has been 
the work of gradual legislation. The claim of the Woik- 
ingmen is, that these means are not yet established. The 
condition of the bondsmen, in chattel slavery, was termed 
a social one. But that supine condition, apart from de- 
grading, and disfranchising 4,000,000 of the people, and 
shocking every lover of humanity to revolt, was found by 
experiment, when taken in full consideration by the great 
nation, to be politically r , a failure. It became a subject of 
national discussion; Then it was political. Despotisms 
of other countries looked upon its overthrow as the begin- 
ning of a political revulsion that would not end until it 
reached the wage slavery system, upon which their own 
thrones stood. It was, after forty years cf investigation by 
the nation, as a committee of the whole, found to be a vast 
political evil, that entered largely into Legislatures, Munici- 
pal Councils, and Congress. Its power made and upheld 
great numbers of public offices, and furnished legislative 
work for unnumbered law-givers from the constable to the 
Senator, even to Presidents of the United States. Who 
then, will contend that the Slave Problem was not a Polit- 
ical one ? Was the war of the Rebellion a political or a so- 
cial affair? Yet what are the general points of difference 
between chattel slavery and wage slavery? This Lnbor 
Question is clearly a political one demanding attention from 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 173 

the nation's political economists. It demands the entire 
people's active attention. If chattel bondage was an eco- 
nomic failure, this is an economic waste. If chattel slavery 
exhausted the soil and made the country poor, wage slav- 
ery makes the intellect poor. If the nation repudiated chat- 
tel slavery as a luxury, so must it repudiate wage slavery. 
Both conditions demand equally the study and wise execu- 
tive ability of all mankind in order to further true political 
interests. One thing is certain: — the mere agitations of 
working people are unproductive of anything realizable, 
except through legislative channels. No proposition comes 
up that can be solved by mere social talk. It requires in- 
tense and assiduous activity or motion in a political direc- 
tion. The social condition proper, is a condition of rest. 
A situation that regards things calmly, as finished. In 
other words, the true social question belongs to the inti- 
mate affairs of private life; and even then, the body j^olitic 
watches it, for stagnation and decomposition follow rest. 
Incorrect allotment must then be the natural result. Not a 
proposition can the workingman make, looking toward his 
advancement, that does not involve fierce discussion of a 
political nature, and generally the creation of some statute. 
A political condition is one of activity. A social condition, 
one of quiet. The Labor Question is intensely political for 
these reasons ; and involves for its solution the study and 
the statesmanship of workingmen and women; and though, 
they may look toward a future social condition for the 
human race, it now belongs to Jurisprudence; since its 
solution involves the democracy of co-operation. It is no 
erotic affair, but a strife for law, liberty and bread. 

Political Economist. Your labor co-operations arc 
not considered very generally successful. Workingmen are 



174 A LABOR CATECHISM 

struggling despondently, over the practical application of 
what is called the co-operative principle. The character of 
American institutions stems to be adverse to it. Conflict- 
ing elements manage to break up many efforts at co-opera- 
tion, and there is scarcely a co-operative store, land societv, 
or industry left. Some thief is sure to succeed in getting 
appointed as custodian of the funds and the poor work- 
ingmen are swindled. The fickleness of American people, 
is something remarkable. The workman of to-day, is the 
proprietor of to-morrow ; and this ambition which is both 
popular and laudable throws life into a constant succession 
of changes, which involves petty emulations, defeats, and 
triumphs over each otber. We see too much antagonism in 
American people for co-operation ; they are too restless to 
co-operate; too busy with their own thoughts and hopes; 
too adventurous. The average American workingman at 
fifty has had at least one house of his own, been a foreman 
two or three times, a boss once, been West and settled on 
a farm, been a property owner, and has had a more chequ- 
ered life than he will acknowledge ; and after all these vicis- 
situdes to which the Trans-Atlantic Workingman is a total 
stranger, his mind is in no condition to settle down to the 
paltry idea of co-operating with his neighbor for cheapen- 
ing the means of life. Now under such circumstances, and 
in the face of the fact that nearly all attempts of work- 
ingmen to co-operate for mutual support are failing around 
us, what hope can you entertain of ever solving the indus- 
trial problem in this way? 

Answer. Simply by allowing co-operation its natur- 
al ■political course. 

Political Jurist. We are not clear about the possi- 
bility of business enterprise connecting with political action. 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, 175 

Answer. Working people alone are forced by grim 
circumstances to see this clearly ; and are beginning to agi- 
tate upon a basis of politico-co-operation. 

Political Economist. Can you cite one instance 

where your idea has ever been carried out ? 

Response. Most certainly. All operations in the 

United States, of which the carrying out is indispensable to 
community, are the result of the people's co-operation. It 
is a truism that "the judgement of the masses is purer, 
surer, and more reliable than the judgement of individ- 
uals, when that judgement can be rendered in council." 
This is as true as the statistical fact, that nine elevenths of 
all individual enterprises are failures. The great war of the 
rebellion was a clear case of hearty, popular co-operation 
through the government. The people had discussed the 
evils of slavery for many years ; and under that school of 
discussion, generations had been born and educated. The 
majority finally agreed in the opinion that slavery must bo 
put away ; and it was done. Their decision was carried 
out. It was the spirit of co-operation which accomplished 
it. But the country teems with other specimens. The 
Steam Fire Departments of our cities are splendid exam- 
ples, and a living proof that the Municipal Government is 
more capable of performing vast and complicated business 
than any individual, or company of them. Would the peo- 
ple feel secure if their preservation from the great destroy- 
er, fire, were left to the desultory action of an individual ? 
The Fire Department belongs to the people ; is co-operated 
in, by ihe people ; watched over by the people. Its de- 
fects are felt, investigated, censured, corrected, by the peo- 
ple. So far as it goes, it is the community taking charge 
of the people ; and is a co-operative enterprise, whereby 



176 A LABOR CATECHISM 

each and all have an intense individual interest in the col- 
lective management of an appliance of protection. Is that 
not co-operation ? 

Lawgiver. It must be admitted, but what has tins 
to do with the Labor Question ? Workingmen are not as 
intimately interested in the Fire Department as the own- 
ers of property. ^Indeed from the character of their strikes 
and the fierceness with which they conduct their evolu- 
tions, they seem to have more sympathy with the destroy- 
er than with the preserver. They often boast that the 
more destroyed the greater will be the amount of labor in 
the market for them. 

Labor Party. The Labor problem, as the term im- 
plies, is too homely and practical to consort, in any grace, 
with mere theory. The world is now rapidly coming out 
upon a broader field of practical economies. The fact 
that nearly nine tenths of our best citizens fail in their e l - 
forts to succeed in independent business, is the bar over 
which individualists cannot climb; and it is the corner 
stone of the new faith in collectivism. 

LawGivER. Do the masses expect to become a uni- 
ty ? Do they sincerely expect, that this collective judge- 
ment of all, or of a numerical majority, can wisely dictate 
the course of industries ? 

Response. It is safe thus to reason. First from the 
success of the Postal Department in which the General 
Government has almost mastered the company system, and 
nearly caused it to disappear. This Bureau is now con- 
ducted by the people, who, profiting by each year's expe- 
rience, legislate, improve and extend it, yearly. Such is 
this great National Bureau, wherein community have daily, 
almost hourly interest. It is an intensely political, as well 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, 177 

as co-perative industry. When all officers of this Bureau 
are elected by the people, instead of being appointed, it 
will make it still more political, thus quickening the spirit 
of co-operation in the people who are to be served, or an- 
noyed, by the delivery or non-delivery, of their goods. In 
either case, the Bureau for distributing the country's litera- 
ture is a national co-operative enterprise, working with a 
marvelous rapidity and precision, extending its almost trace- 
less ramifications throughout the whole nation. It extends 
to the homes of an immense population, whether far, or near, 
and if they wander beyond boundary lines, seeks them out 
as unerringly, through international articulation, and is thus 
made universal. Supposing now, all this wonderful net-work 
were the property ol one man. It is doubtful whether any 
business man exists, who has the ability to dispense it. But 
we will, for the sake of argument, allow that there is an in- 
dividual possessing great business ability, who, by the mo- 
nopoly of instrumentalities for moving and distributing the 
mails, might arrive at that result. Would not the Postal 
Bureau bi-come an intolerable monopoly ? What good 
would legislation do? What redress shall people obtain 
of abuses in any outside industry ? We should be left no 
appeal. Would it not arrest one of the important business 
affairs which voters send men to Congress to look after? 

Allowing imagination a wider range, suppose that we 
give other branches of present legislative business to simi- 
lar monopolies, until there remains nothing to send repre- 
sentatives to Congress for; and Ave find the land a despot- 
ism ! It is just these few advantages poor people possess, 
of legislating business affairs, which distinguishes us from, 
arbitrary governments. In the example of the Bureau re- 
ferred to, if the people are not satisfied they must blame 



178 A LABOR CATECHISM 

themselves. Let it be explained, that it answers as a 
prompter to the workingmen, to demand that the same 
form of collective business go farther, and supersede pres- 
ent individualist forms in other necessary enterprises which 
now fail twice out of eleven attempts. 

Lawgiver. The assertion that nine industries in elev- 
en are failures, would fortify your argument better, if it 
had foundation in probability. Workingmen are notorious 
for random averments; and are continually coining guess- 
work for positive fact. Is it not more probable that no 
such a percentage actually fails ? 

Labor Party. Not only do nine elevenths of all in- 
dividual enterprises fail inside the first seven years, but it 
is equally true, that four fifths of the different Government 
enterprises are successful, if we except those of war, where 
one or the other of the contestants only, succeeds ; and 
where bot'i lose largely. 

Political Economist. What essential difference do 
you draw between this founder of a great company busi- 
ness and a collective body, or Commonwealth, that posses- 
ses similar faculties ? 

Labor Party. Supposing this imagined manager of 
the business in question, after getting his vast industry sat- 
isfactorily arranged, dies. As a consequence, the animus 
of the enterprise which this man has studied and brought 
to a successful issue, dies with him ; because he has failed 
to instruct others to his own standard of capability. This 
is the inevitable fate of individual enterprises; and is one 
reason why so large a percentage fails. But in a govern- 
ment enterprise, the regime is reversed. A government 
enterprise is collectively controlled from the first. The 
monopolist referred to, who operates this business system 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 179 

through his personal genius, is proud of his secret. Such. 
men generally die without leaving, even to their own chil- 
dren, their business secret. Their death is a calamity; be- 
cause the world needs business ability, though it were sel- 
fishly applied. It should be the duty of a people, in a col- 
lective sense, to make a study of this business secret of the 
individual, and to carefully teach the collectivity, — that is, 
the body politic, — the same principles of management, for 
collective use, which the individual has worked out, for in- 
dividual use. To perpetuate the knowledge of business 
management wrought by the sagacity and tact of individ- 
uals, and to inculcate this tact upon the public mind, is to 
make the spirit of co-operative business through govern- 
ment, take the place of individual business through mono- 
poly. Masses cannot afford to lose a great business. These 
successive losses are a cause of the large percentage of fail- 
ures. Let people get this business secret, and it will never 
die ; for although individuals may come and go, and be 
subject to the vicissitudes of event and change, yet legisla- 
tive knowledge and tact is ever gradually upward, keeping 
pace with the progress of human enlightenment, and is ab- 
solutely imperishable. It is always improved by practical 
experience through youth, and age, as it passes from gen- 
eration to generation. 

Political Economist. jSTo method in business can 
exist without some basis or theory ; and the details of such 
business are predicated of this theory. Upon what theory 
do you found this new democracy or ballot co-operation? 

Labor Party. Upon the ballot as the only natural 
share of citizenship. "What proves fatal to our small asso- 
ciation, is the inequality and changeableness of shares. Fix 
them upon the one share, and one priced share basis, and 



180 A LABOR CATECHISM 

they are likely to succeed. Otherwise they become a prey 
to monopoly, or are ripped and routed by competitions. 
Neither one of these evils, — competition or monopoly, — 
can enter into Ballot Co-operation. Why ? Because the 
ballot is the exponent, or practical expression of a want, 
which is felt within the individual. The ballot is a legal- 
ized edict. It is indivisible and cannot be multiplied ; and 
if the caster be wise, it is unmonopolizable. Every one feels 
deep in his nature, that if he has a right to exist, he has a 
right to the means of existence. In the ballot only can this 
feeling find expression with majorities. In the collective 
industry, each citizen feels this intense personal interest. 
He has one share in ballot co-operation, and no less ; — the 
ballot share. The government ought to multiply its func- 
tions by making them assume many distributive and manu- 
facturing enterprises. It is only in augmenting the number 
and volume of these public industries that the public can 
realize the dignity and profit of their inheritance of the cit- 
izenship which is expressed in the ballot. What is a share 
in citizenship? It is nothing unless accompanied by some 
useful material. The biggest infatuation the public can fall 
into, is to suppose, that a commonwealth, every acre of 
whose land, and every manufacturing and distributive in- 
dustry of which, may be taken away from them by the 
apt est and luckiest of their numbers! The true future 
value and glory of the citizen's ballot rests in the clue it 
furnishes him to get these industries and lands into enjoy- 
able fractions, by means of the right or share of citizenship. 
This can only be realized in collective ownership; and if each 
citizen owns a single untransmissible life share of one such 
property in common with the rest, it follows that a large 
number of such properties would be equivalent to a fortune 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 181 

for him. The management of these source-tributaries of 
their wealth, would then make it a Commonwealth indeed. 

Political Economist. Is not every manifestation of 
business growth, after all, contrary to the very principle in- 
volved in this plan of letting government absorb the control 
of our industries ? We see on every hand that the free- 
dom we enjoy only gives license to individuals who possess 
superior tact, or business capacity. The greater number of 
the people do not possess these talents and fall the prey of 
a few who do. Mechanics apply themselves in the same 
manner. Our gifted business man buys a machine, which 
performs the work of a dozen men with their empty hands. 
It used to require all their time. Noav, one man, with a 
machine, can do it. What becomes of the eleven? The 
world is getting fall of the>e business facilities. A little 
while ago all the small shops in the streets were occupied. 
Now they are vacant. In place of them, w r e see some co- 
lossal establishment systematically dispensing the needs of 
the people at a cheaper and more satisfactory rate than has 
hitherto been done by these numerous, smaller concerns. 
How many small dry goods stores have been annihilated 
by the superior method of A. T. Stuart & Co ! 

Labor Party. This is a most cogent reminder of the 
progress of science; but it is fraught with dangers. It will 
not do as we are continually arguing, to permit such great 
establishments, which thus supersede and destroy the old 
and comparatively petty methods of our fathers, to Hill ex- 
clusively into the hands of individuals. They run into mo- 
nopolies. The profit incentive of the individual beggars 
the less lucky masses. Great establishments must thrive 
for their economical merits. The world needs them ; but 
they must belong to the people, as a collective body. Bu- 



182 A LABOR CATECHISM 

siness concerns must be operated by the State. How long 
must the people be humiliated by a diseased and chronic 
system of supply ? How long must their homes, food, fuel, 
clothes and other necessaries be doled out to them by mere 
individuals with special legislation under their control, who 
opeiate for special interests? Such persons, if unchecked, 
assume a very arbitrary purveyorship for the defenseless 
masses, who are, in this way, chained too low to be danger- 
ous; and bind the thongs of poverty and infatuate slavery 
rround them. How long must this last, in the dazzle of 
such an enlightened age as this, when people have no better 
excuse for their miseries than apathy and ignorance? A 
little political organization of the truly useful classes; a lit- 
tle imitation of those magnificent examples, already under 
State control, whose very splendor mocks them ; a little 
wholesome combination of independent work in the direc- 
tion of Self-IIelp, would sweep away the shackles from their 
limbs, the cobwebs from their vision, the lethargy from 
their nerves, and launch them out upon a field of co-oper- 
ative economy redundant in manhood and gladness. 



CHAPTER IX. 



REVIEWING AND SENSING 

THE POLITICAL PHASES OF THE RISING 

QUESTION OF LAND AND TIME. 



Dialogue between Dwelleks 

upon Farms and in Cities. Foreshadowing 

an ominous Crisis. 



Agriculturist. The Farmers who entertain a 
lively recognition of the general importance involved in 
the Labor Movement, see much that is worthy of serious 
contemplation and are preparing to admit even the possi- 
bility, of a revolution, feel disposed to hold interviews with 
pioneers of the Labor Party as an expedient, notwithstand- 
ing a general belief pervading their organizations, that the 
theory embraced in the Labor Platform is impracticable. 

Member of the Labor Party. Then we are hon- 
ored by an interview with persons in a passive, rather than 
a combative state of mind; and must at once assure them 
that these are by no means impracticable idea<, but that 
they are highly practical and apply to immediate home 
necessities of the whole industrial people, the occupants of 
the land included. 






184 A LABOR CATECHISM 



Farm Labor. We want to know how they can be 
so twisted as to apply to that very numerous branch known 
as Agriculturists. Why should the Farmer take an interest 
in the question of diminishing the hours of labor? 

City Labor. Our Eight Hour Movement sprang out 
of the increased facilities of machinery for production. Ev- 
ery new mechanical contrivance saves some of the old tug- 
ging labor Avhich our forefathers were obliged to perform 
by the long process of manual toil. Wares of commerce 
are now produced by machinery fifty percent more rapidly 
than at the beginning of this century, when people worked 
from twelve to sixteen hours a day; and twenty percent faster 
still, than in the third, fourth and fifth decade of this century 
when people worked ten hours a day. The change, there- 
fore, was scientifically correct; the diminution of time be- 
ing in a mathematical ratio with the increased facilities of 
production. 

Farm Labor. Your calculations refer exclusively to 
manufacture. What about Agriculture and distribution ? 

City Labor. In Agriculture we see a great wrong. 
Nearly the same increase of the facilities of production ex- 
ists on the farm that is observable in the factory, machine 
shop or builder's yards; but while the employes of in-door 
industries have talked, studied, agitated and partially suc- 
ceeded in procuring from time to time, a commensurate a- 
batement of hours, Farmers have done little in any direction. 
They have organized to economize Farm products for the 
well-to-do proprietors, but have said too little about the 
drudgery of their help. The same old non-progress hum- 
drum exists. A poor Farmer Boy continues to rise at day- 
light, do the milking, feed and harness the horses and clean 
the stables. This is his recreation before going to work. 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 185 

After this pastime lie must plow, drag, harvest or make hay, 
for twelve long hours, during the warm weather. In win- 
ter he is turned out of work entirely; and hunger stares 
him iu the face. All this in a free country where serfdom 
and slavery are ignored. Compare this Farmer Boy with 
a young mechanic who enjoys the short day's labor! 

Farm La.eoe. The comparison is scarcely fair ; be- 

cause the Farm has not yet received as much benefit from 
labor saving machinery as the mechanical industry. 

Response. This is one of the reasons for making the 
comparison. The Farm has not developed the boy as has 
the In-Door Industry. If it had, he would have applied in- 
ventions of his own. Farm work still keeps him down. 
He remains in a state of ignorance; while the mechanic has 
had a few meagre opportunities. Besides, the mechanic 
has been subject to a monopoly fastened by speculators, up- 
on his labor saving inventions, which has gluttonously de- 
voured most of his opportunities ; while the Farm, by its 
peculiar character, cannot be subject to the concentrating 
work of monopoly, to any great extent, except in distribu- 
tion, or the snle of produce after it is raised. True, there 
is a monopoly, to some extent in the manufacture and sale 
of most labor saving implements of Agriculture, such as 
reapers, mowers, threshing machines, and even the bricks 
and lumber of which the Farmers build. This, Farmers 
find* can be abated by co-operation, but it cannot be called 
a monopoly of the instruments in any way conflicting with 
the wnges and hours of the Farmer Boy in question. The 
study of the age is, how to free the poor and helpless from 
drudgery that makes them slaves; how to realize Economi- 
cal Enfranchisement; how to best cultivate and apply me- 
chanics as an economic means. In the case of the young 



186 A LABOR CATECHISM 

mechanic, we already find that the labor-saving instru- 
ments produced since the opening of the century have, not- 
withstanding a terrible monopoly of their uses, by individ- 
uals and companies, actually liberated him from the old 
serf drudgery of bygone ages, in proportion as they have 
shortened his day^s work. The agricultural laborer contin- 
ues to work from twelve to fourteen hours a day; although 
an almost incalculable advantage has been realized in ag- 
riculture through the introduction of labor-saving instru- 
ments. What result do we see ? The mechanic, though 
far less educated than he ought to be, already begins to feel 
himself a man. He is shuffling off his clogs. His fustian, 
corduroy, hickory and iron drab are exchanged for the fash- 
ion cut. His wan, expressionless eye assumes the keener 
flame of an unhindered development: and the painful gait, 
Stooping stature, and mournful effort at manliness have so 
improved, that among wage mechanics, good appearance 
need no longer be forced, to have effect. Young mechan- 
ics are indeed respectable, although few are able to find 
employment more than two thirds of the year. If, then, the 
mechanics have cause for agitating the subject of still great- 
er improvement, how much more cause have their suffering 
neighbors of the Farm to complain of their still unmitigated 
condition ! The comparison must not be understood to refer 
to the sons of well-to-do farmers who are not obliged to 
toil; but to that great class of hired men and women at this 
moment doing the hard Farm labor; and who, like the 
mechanics, and their wives, sisters and daughters, have no 
other means but their hands, for support. 

Farm Labor. Fault must again be found with this 
seeming want of fairness. We understand, that the great 
Labor Question touches the whole Farming Community; 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 187 

employers, as well as our employes. A great political sub- 
ject like this, must not be confined within narrow borders, 
but should engross all. 

City Labor. We are weaving two extremes into an 
argument, which will soon engross us all in the web. The 
question with all, is, with regard to the unscientific use to 
which the whole machinery of production and distribution 
is surrendered. Everything in farming as well as in me- 
chanics depends upon the economic uses of productive fa- 
cilities. These subjects we are digesting, do not belong 
either to morality or equity, in the light in which these 
terms are accepted in society. They are matters of severe 
science, in the adjustment of physical forces to economics. 
The effect of this adjustment is as computable as an alge- 
braic equation. It is sure to produce more equitable rela- 
tions in men and things; is not merely supposablc, hut posi- 
tively certain. Science knows no more about conscien- 
tious equity, or ethics, excepting so far as carrying natural 
law into effect is concerned, than the inanimate Spinning 
Jenny. The world must learn to study nature more, and 
accepted usage less. Get hold of solid material and learn 
to shnpe its uses so that it will produce, and equitably dis- 
tribute the greatest possible amount of good material with 
the least possible effort; for in exact proportion as society 
learns this, will the labor problem come to solution. With- 
in the last hundred years, the truly wonderful acceleration 
of practical, inventive genius has abridged the mechanics' 
days' work about three hours; while it hns had no co-equal 
effect upon the large and useful class of farmers, likewise 
non-property owners. Can a nation afford this, knowing 
that the progress of invention is about in proportion with 
the leisure, and consequent disinthraiiment of body and 



188 A LABOR CATECHISM 

mind? Many things have been invented and set success- 
fully at work doing that which formerly was done by hand; 
but there is much left to be d scovered. We have the 
means of accomplishing, with facility, much that formerly 
cost great pains and patience to produce; but we have yet 
to invent and apply means by which to correctly distrib- 
ute these productions. This requires the intelligence of ev- 
ery citizen. What sort of economy is this, then, that al- 
lows the intelligence of hired men to lie perpetually inact- 
ive? Farmers themselves, cannot afford it, neilhcr can the 
nation at large. Do not the sons and daughters of the soil 
lack ma:iy intellectual accomplishments which more leisure 
and training afford ? Comparatively few of our farmers' 
children feel qualined to go in the company of the young 
clerks, law, medical or art students, or even mechanics of 
our neighboring towns and villages. It .is not because they 
cannot command leisure, so much perhaps, as because the 
whole farming community are in the habit of drudging; 
and even the grand inroads of economics, which the science 
of mechanics brings forth, seem insufficient to turn them 
from this almost deadly habit of overdoing. The Farmers, 
most certainly, are thinking people; yet they do not think e- 
nough, in proportion as they work too much. A healthy 
man may work eight hours a day even at hard farm work 
and think every hour of this time ; but if he works longer 
than this, fatigue will arrest his study. If he continues 
to work twelve hours, bodily fatigue is perpetual; and 
thought is driven perpetually from his intellect. No wise 
and really prosperous Farmer can afford more than an aver- 
age of six hours manual labor per day. With this amount 
of bodily exercise, the easy Farmer attains his greatest av- 
erage longevity ; that of sixty two years ! Only the repre- 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, 189 

sentativcs of one class of business men attain this age, — the 
accountants. Many of our most useiul tradesmen such as 
the machinists, glass blowers, steel grinders, brass finishers 
and of several unskilled occupations die at the average age of 
thirty two. Gradually, an extra lease of average life, may, 
with safety, be credited to them, equal in proportion to the 
amount of time abated from an excessive day's work. So 
long a life of the thrifty fanner cannot be attributed solely 
to his advantages of pure air and healthy surroundings ; for 
we find that the average age of the agricultural laborers of 
Great Britain is only forty eight years. It is not only a 
groat inhumanity to ourselves to exact more than eight 
hours per day, but it is a bad financial economy, leading to 
disaster. You see by a careful scanning of facts, that there 
scarcely exists an argument in favor of the long day's work 
which is not grossly on the side of savagery, and human 
degradation. 

Farm Labor. It is desirable also, to obtain inter- 
change of opinion with reference to the best manner of dis- 
tributing farm products. This subject must naturally treat 
of great Railroad monopolies, whose dangerous combina- 
tions threaten to intercept and drag down free interchange 
between the agriculturists of the interior, and the consum- 
ers of the seaboards. Plainly, this evil can never be uproot- 
ed until Farmers have the means of conveyance in their 
own hands. In order to avert this growing difficulty, tann- 
ers combine with each other; and begin to appreciate the 
need of an extensive mutual combination with the workers 
of the cities. Might not a great advantage be thus pro- 
cured, especially if such railroad lines and water communi- 
cations, necessary for transporting the supplies of both, 
could be arranged between them, entirely independent of 



190 A LABOR CATECHISM 

the transportation companies? But there are insurmount- 
able difficulties attending co-operation of this kind. 

City Labor. People living in cities are acquainted 
with many of the theories and. projects of Farmers, and 
there are many adherents to them. A favorite idea with 
the Farmers is to restrict and regulate the freight tariff by 
legislative enactment, and in this way control monopoly. 

But this will be slow to succeed. It is true, these re- 
strictions will, for a time, be resorted to, as a means of 
combating the encro. chments of great companies. It is 
the first flank movement upon the enemy. Being the 
army of resistance, Farmers naturally become the army of 
revolution. Monopoly is the old monarchy revived. A 
monarch is one who has the power of government concen- 
trated upon himself. It makes little difference whether 
that power have control over the destinies of men direct, 
or over the means of their existence. The difficulty to be 
corrected is brought on by an accaparement, and absolute 
exploiture of the instruments of transportation by individ- 
ualists, actuated by an impulse of exclusive personal gain. 
All was going well, and the building of railroad lines 
throughout the country in times past, was looked upon as a 
necessary improvement to the country, so long as it was 
in the hands of many companies and there was competition. 
But gradually the roads are being leased or bought up by 
such individuals as are shrewdest in control, and thus the 
management of these combinations, is turned over to one, 
instead of many competing companies. The inevitable ten- 
dency is toward concentration of our transportation lines, 
upon one man. "Man," typically used, mny represent one 
company, or one knot of men, vulgarly called a "King " 

But be sure of one thing ; that certain as the law of natu- 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 191 

ral selections, this one company, knot of men, or ring, will 
always he composed of those who possess the greatest apti- 
tude, and grasping ability to manage ; for it is by their su- 
periority over other competitors, that they get control. 
This is monarchical in an intense degree; and should be re- 
pudiated with the same spirit, in which an invading army 
of a despotic monarch would be repudiated. It is a despot- 
ism which may inflame elements of civil war; for it is an 
onslaught against popular liberty. Should a monarchy un- 
dertake to concentrate around a throne the management of 
the United States and Territories, the people would regard 
it as an attempt to monopolize their business ; and a war 
would be as natural as the uprising of the Farmers against 
monopoly. A people imbued with the spirit of freedom, 
arouse and shake off the yoke by force. So they must 
shake off the yoke of this great transportation monopoly or 
they will soon find themselves and their industrial interests 
subordinated to them. But the fathers of all free institu- 
tions have always resorted to ninny a feint and sally before 
they came to the final grapple with the enemy. So we 
shall have to resort to all the strategy of legislative restric- 
tion, prudential coaxing, and temporary commutations; 
but the evil remains abroad, and will exist. It is a tumor 
upon the democracy of the people. We may doctor it but 
it will grow afresh. It must be cut out; deracinated. The 
railroads must be delivered over to the State, and become 
property of the people. 

Farm Labor. But the people have a peculiar dislike 
of thisiden, and cite us to the different governments of the 
world that have adopted the management of railroads, tele- 
graphs and other public works by the monarchical govern- 
ments, as proof that the system is monarchical, and that 



192 A LABOR CATECHISM 

rather than being diffusive and democratic, it is concentra- 
tive in tendency. 

CrTY Labor. This is another of many mistakes. The 
power of central government over public industries of all 
kinds, invariably tends toward popular control; while the 
power of individual management, invariably leans toward 
exclusivism. Napoleon Third, one of the severest despots 
of modern times, who was able to perpetuate his reign for 
twenty years by sheer stifling and fanatacizing the intel- 
lect of a great people who rank among the intensest lovers 
of freedom, found it convenient to keep the railroads out of 
government control ; because the people claimed every- 
thing belonging to government, as theirs. Masses never 
think of claiming that which is owned and managed by 
individuals. Great railroad companies who were the sub- 
servient instruments of monarchy, were thus enabled to 
monopolize the carrying trade, raise the tariffs to a high 
rate and enrich themselves by exacting from, and humilia- 
ting the people. Close on the borders of France is another 
monarchy having exclusive control of more than half her 
railroads. All the world is gazing and calculating upon the 
results; and learning an incalculably important lesson. Lit- 
tle Belgium under the very shadow and frown of her giant 
neighbor, is teaching all people a lesson in this most radi- 
cal branch of political economy. Her government posses- 
ses the railroads and works them in the interest of the peo- 
ple. The whole labor movement is inspired by it into the 
profoundest hope. Switzerland awakes to find her repub- 
lican government a monarchy, to the extent that railways 
telegraphs and canals are avenues of despotism. Italy sees 
the incompatibility of railway monopoly with her huge 
progress and is buying up her southern lines. Germany 






OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 193 

exacts a fourth class government conveyance, to accommo- 
date her people. England is cautiously, and successfully 
applying the same principle to some of her home and colo- 
nial lines. Belgium, in many respects, though a kingdom, 
is the freest government in the world; and king, people, 
and representatives are enacting laws and regulations which 
exclude monopoly from railroad management. The price 
of railway travel, and of freight is astonishingly low, as a 
consequence ; because the government has no desire to 
make a profit out of it. It is conducted on the principle of 
serving the people at cost. Now we have a freer govern- 
ment, theoretically speaking, than the people of Belgium ; 
yet our railroads are frowning despotisms, and are growing 
more monarchical and defiant. The only manner in which 
these threatening innovations upon our liberties can be 
treated, is to annihilate the monopoly over railroads, and 
substitute our own management in its place. In short, we 
must follow the example of Belgium. 

Farm Labor. We apprehend it will be long before 
people are practical enough, in their legislation to effect so 
radical a change. The government has shown itself too 
stupid, fraudulent and incompetent even to transact its own 
proper business of making statutes and paper regulations, 
for the people, without attempting all these intricate evo- 
lutions of business management. People are scarcely wise 
enough to substitute direct for proxy control either in rail- 
roads canals or telegraphs. Legislatures and Congress are 
continually in an entanglement with the people in matters 
of practical business; and now, you propose that they 
plunge still deeper into untried adventures, when they are 
incompetent, even to make regulations for those industries 
which they already control ! 



194 A LABOR CATECHISM 

City Labor. The only cure for it lies in co operation 
of the people themselves. Government must learn to con- 
trol them as public works. Government gave away money 
and land enough to the Credit Mobilier scheme, to build a 
railroad across the continent, for the people. With this 
money it might have hired the work done, and of the best 
material, paid its own citizens well for the same, and then 
had this great, highway in its own name to run for all time 
in the mutual interest of the people of both seaboards at 
cost. To say that government could not conduct an inter - 
oceanic line in behalf of citizens is equivalent to saying that 
it cannot work the Postal Department; or that a city gov- 
ernment cannot supply itself with a Police Force, or with 
Waier, Fire, Sewerage Departments, without intermediary 
managers; yet these are all know 7 n to be satisfactory, and 
successful. 

Farmer. What is your opinion regarding the manage- 
ment of the Land ; or in other words, the control of agri- 
culture by the State or government 'i 

Answer. Mere opinions are of little use in these days 
of exact knowledge, which is sweeping away the creeds and 
usages of the human race. Some reference to what has been 
done on Co operative Farms, and Government Parks, may 
not be amiss, in affording a subject of conversation. 

Farm Labor. Is there evidence enough to warrant 
this government, in undertaking the building of Parks and 
Farms on an extensive plan ? Might not Congress attempt 
a Farm upon a sublime scale on some of the great govern- 
ment domains of the West ? 

City Labor. Appropriations of money by Congress 
will be necessary, for the Yellow Stone National Park. 
Nearly all the Parks of the country are successful in their 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 195 

objects. They are the breathing places of the great people. 
But they are all built by contractors, which is a stain upon 
the principle of collectivism. There are in the world, how- 
ever, a few excellent models, which serve to show the per- 
fect capability of the people to work lands without inter- 
mediary aid. The Societe Beauregard in France, has a farm 
worked exclusively by its members. Many of the great 
farms of the Shakers are worked by their own members. 
The Community of Oneida has, until manufacturing called 
the members away, always done its own farm work, with- 
out aid from without. Its success is due to a persistent 
carrying out of this principle. Of late years, the principle 
has been necessarily violated; as the domain grew faster 
than the membership, and outside help was hired. It is, 
however, the intention to return to the old plan of direct 
labor, as soon as circumstances will permit. 

Farm Labor. What is monopoly in its voted accepta- 
tion, at the principal Labor Congresses of the world ? 

City Labor. Monopoly originally signified, the one 
city, or centre of negotiations. Greece had two; Athens 
and Sparta ; and they were rivals and fought. Rome was 
a Monopoly. The word is consequently applied to any 
centre of control or power. A modern Monopoly is gen- 
erally a junto of a few of the shrewdest intellects hav- 
ing financial control over great numbers. 

Farm Labor. What is the tendency of the modern 
Monopoly? 

City Labor. It thrives best by obtaining, and con- 
trolling labor saving appurtenances, which are the harvest 
of human genius, and therefore, common property of civ- 
ilization; and do not naturally belong to individuals. 

Farm Labor. What is the effect of this usurpation ? 



196 A LABOR CATECHISM 

City Labor. Too frequently, it displaces from their 
positions and forces into the streets, as cumpulsory beg- 
gars, plunderers, and lawbreakers, great numbers who are 
affected by its introduction. Under the exclusive control 
of a Monopoly, an invention capable of doing work which 
formerly required ten persons, is made to perform it with 
one. The power and self interest of this Monopoly are 
such, thai the thus economized product is not much lessen- 
ed in price ; but the nine workmen are discharged ; and the 
Monopolist realizes, as his net j)rof]t, that which was for- 
merly paid the nine men in wages, less the wear and run- 
ning expense of the instrument which now performs the 
ten men's work. 

Farm Labor. Do you want to bridle the invention 
of machinery ? 

City Labor. No. We would remedy the evil by 
making government encourage the inventor, assist him, 
pay him, and buy his invention, if a good one. The State 
itself must learn to operate the Labor-saving instrument in 
the impartial interest of the whole people, without profit 
and at cost; and not allow any exclusivist who is urged on- 
ly by the profit incentive, to use it as an instrument which 
can serve the double purpose of making a millionaire of 
himself, and paupers of the people. 

Farm Labor. Do artisans of the city think the in- 
troduction of labor-saving implements creates paupers to 
such an extent as to effect the statistical reports ? 

CrTY Labor. The growth of pauperism is in propor- 
tion to the number displaced by the innovation. It is one 
cause of so much suffering among mechanics. The tenden- 
cy is also observable on the Farm. 

Farm Labor. Will State interference, or control of 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 197 

these implements by the people at large, instead of individ- 
ualists, abate the evil on the Farm and in the Factory alike ? 

City Labor. The government must do one of two 
things: — control the inventions which displace workmen, of 
the land and the workshops, from vocations, superseded by 
their introduction, or shoulder upon itself, that is, the peo- 
ple, the maintenance of 'the paupers, and the cost of arrest , 
custody and 2?unishment, of all criminals, which the conse- 
quent idleness, hunger and desperation bring forth. 

Farm Labor. How can government be made to man- 
age an industry; especially a Farm industry ? 

Eeply. IIow can governments manage the care of 
paupers ? Community at large pays their expenses ! Com- 
munities know how, and make provision for them though 
they find it poor economy. Are communities ever to remain 
so stupid that they cannot economize time b} T putting men 
at work upon the very machines which drcve them into 
pauperism under the monopolist ? This is one great study 
of this century. Labor-saving machines are innocent and 
incalculably useful. But their exclusive management by 
a small minority at the expense of the great majority is an 
outrage; as our pauper statistics show. Let Government 
learn this and it will find no trouble in working the land on 
a vast and scientific scale. 

Farm Labor. What else will be the effect but abol- 
ishment of the Patent Office and the substitution therefor 
of some scheme by government, for incouraging inventors 
personally so that the community, or people may have the 
direct use of the invention ? 

City Labor. We propose no warfare upon the Pat- 
ent Office. The effect must be to reward the deserving. 
Competism and monopoly have abused the Patent Office 



198 A LABOR CATECHISM 

opprobriously ; but our object is to discuss tbe science of 
land tilling, by the State. Man is so constituted that several 
aptitudes seldom combine in one person. The true genius 
often has the least push. The inventor is generally modest, 
retiring, thoughtful; but wliat is worse, confiding. As a 
rule he has not tbe constitutional cbarncteristics of a man- 
ager of inventions. A shrewd manager is usually an employ- 
er. He employs, we suppose, among other hands, a man of 
inventive genius, who almost unsconseious of the good he is 
doing, invents an improvement in the labor-saving appar- 
atus of the concern. Now the misfortune is, that the man- 
ager is too frequently the one to patent this improvement 
as his ownj a:id often the poor inventor, far from securing 
the profits to himself, is bought out for a trifle, or inter- 
cepted and browbeaten, or perhaps attacked and discharg- 
ed at the caprice of the more powerful manager, who has 
money and business tact. So the Patent Office is frequent- 
ly used in the interests of the shrewd manager, rather than 
of the modest inventor. By the application of money, law- 
yer's service and circumlocution, this Monopolist gets the 
honor and emoluments, by patenting the invention as his 
own. All these difficulties are avoided when the govern- 
ment has control of the industry in which the invention is 
put to practical use. 

What people want, in order to be happy, and to live in 
consonance with the progressive spirit of true liberty and 
enlightenment, is to adjust their affairs so as to free them- 
selves from business responsibilities, that they may turn 
their valuable time to the nobler and deeper subjects of so- 
cial and literary life. Humanity is bowed down with toil. 
More than half the business, attempted by individuals fails. 
Wreck, disappointment, social caste, self destruction follow. 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 199 

Individualism is a scramble for illegitimate profit ; and too 
frequently the undeserving get it. Of this incoherent and 
incongruous scramble for worldly means, the Agriculturists 
have their share. 

Let them, then, join the mighty Party of Politico- Social 
Industry; unbind the fetters which fasten them to an infat- 
uating habit of selfishness, and with the toilers of the cities 
and the sympathies of science, call upon the people to act 
collectively, in bringing into the world a system of soil cul- 
tivation by the State; that industrial responsibility may fall 
impartially upon great numbers, not unequally upon in- 
dividuals. 

Agriculturist. For the State, or Government, to at- 
tempt the exploiture of agriculture, in all its branches, is a 
serious undertaking. It is, indeed, a vast adventure. Such 
an extraordinary leap into the darkness of doubt and inex- 
perience, mu-t, and will, necessarily be regarded with alarm. 
"What else but wreck and disaster could, by any sane mind, 
be expected to result from such a stupendous and wholesale 
departure from the customs and usages of the entire world? 
Nations vary in their forms of political government. Indi- 
viduals seem created with great diversity of physical and 
mental adaptabilities. Even the surface configuration of the 
land which the farmer tills, is intersected with nooks and 
eddies, and boundary lines, seemingly to fit it for individual 
tillage and to baffle any attempt of a greater administration 
or domination over the soil, like the government, or the col- 
lective individual whose united occupancy of land, forms 
what is called the State. 

Response. What is a modern government but an associ- 
ation for protection, and mutual well-being? It is evident, 
not only from statistics, but the open and visible facts, exist- 



200 A LABOR CATECHISM 

ing on every hand, which accuse farm management of gross 
incompetence. Individuals undertake, with their meagre op- 
portunities, to control the cultivation of the soil, and fail- 
Wc see the precious land under heavy mortgages and often 
becoming the property of lawyers and others of the highly 
paid and speculating people of the towns, who do not per- 
form the hard toil of agriculture. Thus the land is gradual- 
ly drifting into the possession of those who do not earn 
a living by cultivating it. This is a great wrong. No peo- 
ple should tolerate it. But how can Farmers prevent it, if 
uncombined? Accumulation of the landed wealth of a peo- 
ple into the hands of individuals and companies, is not only 
wrong, but very dangerous ; yet as it is a result of the com- 
petitive system, endowed with special laws, and powers of 
immemorial habit and usage, there certainly exists but one 
sure method of obtaining an equal distribution of this land- 
ed domain, and that method is agitation, as a fundamental 
principle of a new political e"07iomy, siq>pla?iting the old 
competitive system, upon which the wro?ig rests. The e- 
vil, portentous w r iih social and political magnitude, over 
sweeping the most troubled area of any subject of the 
dark and difficult problem of Labor, is failure of land culti- 
vation and tenure, by the individual. Humanity can devise 
but one solution, resting upon the adamant of impregnable 
justice and eternal duration: — all individuals must become 
one, by association and agreement ; — this to be made a deep, 
penetrating Principle of the Industrial Agitations. Working 
people are not slow to see in their own beloved Government 
or political Empire, an immense and powerful combination 
of forces, competent at their sovereign command, to turn its 
richest resources of applied sciences, of willing labor, of copi- 
ous funds to a vast, practical, scientific tillage of the Eaeth. 



CHAPTER X. 



WORKING PEOPLE THE TAXPAYERS. 

DUTIES OF POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS 

CONTROLLING PUBLIC WORKS. 



Debate between members of 
Old Political Parties and an Attorney 
for the Movement of Labor. 



Politician-. We come delegated by an Organ- 
ized Body, to enjoy an exchange of sentiments with refer- 
ence to some new opinions you entertain on Political 
Economy. 

Attorney for the People. What Body do you 
represent ? 

Politician. A secret society organized and main- 
tained in the interest of many who take upon themselves 
the manipulation of important details in politics. 

Response. We have never yet been able to separate 
studied secrecy from deception. We, ourselves, sometimes 
see the need of privacy in unimportant details; but as for a 
mere secret club being empowered with the management 
of so solemn a trust as the people's destiny, human beings 
must be wise and just indeed, if pure management arises 



202 A LABOR CATECHISM 

from the hidden depths of their nightly reunions, which the 
world's sad and sickening picture of poverty and sin, proves 
to have come from darkness rather than light. The politi- 
cal economy we teach, depends for its success upon light; 
not darkness. It is scientific and provable only in the 
broadest glare of light. Can it then, have sympathy with 
that which is occult ? 

Politician. If you are no better posted in details 
than to begin a political career without the aid of secret 
political manoeuvres, you are a failure to begin with. 

People's Attorney. Well, then, if your organiza- 
tion has any idea of endorsing, or of even discussing the 
merits of truth, whether that discussion be in cells or on 
the house tops, is immaterial, except with the progress to 
be achieved. 

Politician. Our organizations are as desirous as your 
own, of using their power honorably, and with discretion. 
It is a mistake, however perfidious the management of 
some secret political combinations, to suppose that all pol- 
iticians are wanting of human kindness. 

Attorney. Kindly permit that we address you, as 
one of the aggrieved public ; else we may not arrive at an 
understanding. You are yourself, a political officer of some 
kind. Your bureau is in some City Hall, Police Head- 
quarters, Public Justice's office, or Commissioner's depart- 
ment of Public Works. The great public at large had 
little to do with your appointment to an easy and remuner- 
ative office. Your appointment, functions, power, come 
indirect ly. Not through the people with whom you play, 
but from the Mayor, Governor or President, whose election 
you instigated the people, through some unseen manoeu- 
vre, to sanction. You represent then, the successful side 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 203 

of two antagonists ; and this success emanated from the 
sanction of an occult, perhaps perfectly honorable plan, by 
a majority of the Public. The Public were admitted into 
the secret only so far as the general principles at the base 
of Party Organization, required it. All details relating to 
your appointment, method of administration, salaries, in 
fact, all the details relating to the destinies of the people 
until the next election, or until the close of said adminis- 
tration, are kept private. This is the same as in monar- 
chical countries, with this single improvement, that this 
monarch and his appointees or assistants, are obliged to 
abdicate periodically instead of remaining in power for life. 
Ton continue to exercise over the people the same supreme 
control which has marked the career of all monarchies. If 
the people succeed in holding you in check, or in dictating 
openly what you shall do in secret, it is with the superior 
mechanical instrumentalities like the steam engine, the tel- 
egraph, the press, and other appurtenances of modern 
practical knowledge. Even this is strongly felt in modern 
monarchies, working potently in democratizing or diffusing 
legislation for the welfare of all. 

o 

Politician. Admitting that our system is radically 
wrong, and that the people ought to have the power of 
electing all subordinate officers, and that everything ought 
to be discussed and arranged in open, instead of secret 
meetings, it is nevertheless certain that secret political so- 
cieties exist; and it is this fact which motives our inquiry. 
We represent a political power that manages details in 
government. We find that business decays at each great 
metropolis of the Eastern Sea Board, which, if not pre- 
vented will cause the industries of those emporiums to be 
drawn into centres of the West. 



204 A LABOR CATECHISM 

People's Attorney. This is natural. Politicians 
cater to the middle classes ; and fail to protect industrious 
elements of society. The government of a city is one- 
sided, and in the interest of so-called taxpayers. These 
taxpayers are the owners of properly, mostly created 
within the city. The city has been swindled by political 
combinations, and plunged into debt; and the taxpayers 
who are obliged to pay the enormous percentage of taxes 
levied on their property, raise the price of rents and other 
means of life. This rise in rents is equivalent to a diminu- 
tion of the salary of every person engaged in the industries 
of that city. The taxpayer finds it easy to equalize, so far 
as he is concerned, the excess of his tax, by the rise of his 
rent, and other material in which he deals. He is a mana- 
ger of product. The poor producers belieye they have 
no more effective means of equalizing their excess of rent, 
and means of life, than a corresponding rise of their wages 
through organization. This naturally leads to strikes, pub- 
lic turmoils, and what is called the disturbance of industry. 
Immense waste and antagonisms of industry are caused in 
this way. It makes industries precarious; and few business 
men can stand both the increased tax and the risk caused 
by the propensity of their employes whose wages they are 
obliged to cut down, to strike or otherwise interrupt busi- 
ness. The fatal consequence of this desultory condition of 
Eastern Seaboard Industries, is to gradually eliminate the 
vital staples of their business prosperity, which of course, 
other industrial centres obtain. 

Politician. This brings us to the point. What can 
political organization do to help the matter? 

Attorney. Every thing. It is upon the political ac- 
tion of such that hopes might be placed if integrity could be 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 205 

relied upon. They have power; but instead of using it in 
the interest of the real taxpayer, the producing majorities, 
back of whose calamities there is no appeal except in strikes 
and over whose future there yawns nothing but social caste, 
they lavish it upon the non-producing middlemen, or pseu- 
do-taxpayers, who, to bridge over their difficult}', have but 
to raise the price of rent, and other means of living, and 
cut down the workmen! s icayes commensurate with the taz- 
levy and the hazard incurred by this change. This means 
war; not peace. One result is to gradually drive industries 
from the city. Political Organizations show their utter in- 
competence to legislate for the well being of their great and 
beautiful city, in persistantly refusing to make provision for 
the safe and honorable employment of the working people 
who are thus forced to defend themselves; and whose want 
provokes crime and entails upon the city further wretched- 
ness, shame, bankruptcy. Meantime the Politician does 
not abate his subservience, but obsequiously clings to the 
middle class, recognizing them as the true taxpayers. 

Politician. What then can be done? Politicians 
have no following from the laboring people. On the con- 
trary they are generally repudiated by them. 

Attorney. Very naturally. These men have the 
control of whole Departments of Public "Works; but instead 
of attending to this, as honest duty and interest instruct, 
farming the power of this supervision, they lease them out 
on contract to third parties, to speculate on. The sinking 
condition of the public treasures, and the spasmodic nature 
of business show that the contract system is defective, when 
the interests of the great public rather than those of public 
men are considered. Necessary work should always be 
done for the sake of the woek, as well as for the woek it- 



206 A LABOR CATECHISM 

self. The necessity of the work of building a park, is the 
first incentive for that labor, which is felt by the entire com- 
munity. The number of clays work it requires to complete 
the park, and the manner in which it is to be done, is an im- 
portant matter to those of the general public who would be 
employed, and thereby earn a li\ ing. This is the second in- 
centive, which touches the heart and home of the entire 
working classes. It is also the Altai matter these political 
organizations neglect. The Politician is unable yet to see, 
that on this incentive he can advance his own and his city's 
interests. 

OpiNtox. Talk this way to the world, and you will 
be scouted as a communist, and an enemy to the leaders of 
society. 

Reply. Nevertheless the truth shall be spoken. The 
first incentive to the building of a park is felt by the gene- 
ral public in common, as a public necessity. The second, is 
felt by the workmen who are to be employed thereon. A 
workman feels a double incentive, because in addition to his 
desire of employment, he, being also a citizen, has a common 
interest with the general public, in the beauty and health, 
of the city, town, or country in which he resides. It follows 
therefore, that the producer of the park, takes double the 
interest in it that any other person can take. This doubled 
incentive is strong enough to promote a political Parly, 
Your organization partakes of precisely the same charac- 
ter, so far as it goes. You conduct the details of a govern- 
ment. They execute the details of a park. The general 
public require a government. The same general commu- 
nity also want a park. This want, then, is identical in both 
cases, and is the first incentive. Now the next incentive is 
the desire of your members to execute the details of this 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 207 

government. They desire it, first, because each feels it a ne- 
cessity in common with the rest of the general public, to 
have a government; and secondly, because they wish to be 
employed, and earn a living, in the performance of this du- 
ty. Tliis is honorable, if there is no dishonest speculation 
in their motive. If they did not do it, somebody else would, 
and these two combined, form an incentive to organization, 
which is intensely strong. Arguing then, from a point in 
principle, no fault is found with your oiganization. It may 
be frankly admitted that it is necessary to have rulers, for 
all citizens's sake, and for your own special sakes, when hon- 
or lies at the base. What objection then, can you conjure up, 
to the employment of the people, by the people, for the sake 
of the labor and the consequent means of support, which it 
affords them? 

Politician. But we do not perform the details of 
this labor on the parks and public edifices. It is let to con- 
tractors. 

Attorney. Why, then, do you not let the mating of 
laws and ordinances to contractors or middlemen ? If you 
are afraid of one communism, why not of another? Why 
do men no longer sub-let their laws to the despots of indi- 
vidualism ? What is the advantage of a democratic gov- 
ernment? Why may not a great principle apply to one 
form as well as to another? To labor as well as law? 

Politici ax. Do you call the long tried and popular 
system of conti acting ihe world's necessary work to out- 
side parties a despotism ? 

People's Attorney. Most decidedly. Any regula- 
tion is despotic, whether political or industrial, which does 
not consult majorities concerned. It is a despotism with 
which the entire anti-monarchical spirit of civilization is 



208 A LABOR CATECHISM 

unconsciously at war. It utterly ruins the second and in- 
tensest interest of the citizen, in an integral government; 
because the people are not supposed to have either owner- 
ship or interest in a private regulation. When the United 
States Government wants a good, genuine ship, it is sure to 
build that ship itself; but when congress makes an appro- 
priation of money to pay for the building of a ship, and al- 
lows a junto of appointed officials to sub-let the work, to 
contractors, be sure the ship will be next to worthless. The 
difference between a necessary thing, made by ourselves, 
under our own supervision, and the same thing made in the 
interest of a contractor, may be considered paramount to 
that generic difference which exists between selfish inter- 
est, and common interest. The only incentive the former 
feels, toward making the thing a good one, is fear of popu- 
lar displeasure, the loss of reputation, and the desire to be 
honest. The incentive he feels toward slighting the work, 
is his craving to make money. The world knows this un- 
fortunate craving too often prevails. Wretched patch- work 
and superficial gloze, pervading a large portion of Ameri- 
can manufacture- is sufficient proof of this. Now when we 
do a thing ourselves, for ourselves, we are, by the force of 
circumstances, free from all negative motives. We cannot 
make it wrong. We have no incentive for making it wrong, 
because the pure thing is what we want. For this reason 
the government gets the best ship when it employs its own 
supervisors direct, hires and pays its own workmen direct, 
buys its own timber and other materials direct, or indepen- 
dently of intermediary managers, and watches and detects 
every flaw. Here is seen the reverse of the contract system 
which excludes this noble, second incentive to do right. 
Our doubled incentive then, is a new urgent of motives in 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, 209 

favor of democracy; because it increases the number in the 
organization. It needs this two-fold incentive, to keep the 
"whole general public organized in politics; and every ten- 
dency is despotic without it. Industrial equilibrialion can- 
not exist without it. Competism, with its speculative in- 
centive receives no check without it. Human government 
can never be pure until its details are carried out under the 
doubled incentive which every citizen must feel, and be, 
through personal motives, actuated by. The fewer the num- 
ber thus actuated, the more closely it verges toward despot- 
ism ; until it culminates in exclusivism or monarchy itself; 
as did Rome and all the empires of the past; whereas the 
larger the number thus actuated, interested, and employed, 
the more purely democratical and fraternal becomes the gov- 
ernment as do the self-help socities of co-operation. If your 
political government furnishes no second, or doubled incen- 
tive of organizati m and labor, except for a mere handful, e- 
liminatmg and excluding it from the masses, it is monarch- 
ical. It may be in a republic. It may produce laudable 
things. But its character is monarchical. Majorities are ex- 
cluded; and it can only be democratical in proportion to the 
numbers who feel this doubled incentive of political organ- 
ization. Its democracy can become general, only in propor- 
tion as it multipr.es the>e doubly interested members. 

Politician. It is true, that we have a Department of 
Public Works, upon which working people are demanding 
employment. It is further true that great numbers are in 
an unorganized state, and those who are associated, think 
of little bat Trade Unions. 

People's Attorney. It has been explained how this 
demise of the work they ask for, destroys their strongest 
incentive to political organization. The sub-agent gets the 



210 A LABOR CATECHISM 

work; not they. He makes profit out of the contract by 
exacting an over portion of labor product from them. If 
you should study their wants, as supervisors of the Board 
of Public Works, and employ the men direct, to perform 
this service, in which they could take an interest as citi- 
zens, hiring them direct and not by proxy, there could be 
no violation of principle. Its tendency is to elevate the 
workman, instead of degrading him ; spurring him to pro- 
duce genuine streets, parks, city buildings and other public 
works. 

Politician. You have not made it clear how this sub- 
agency of labor acts as a tyranny, or despotism. Mere- 
ly the statement has been made, but no satisfactory reason 
and evidence have been adduced. 

Attoeney. Proof is visible in the degradation of employ- 
es. In favor of the direct system of employment, the proof 
is in their elevation. The difference is plain and natural ; 
and being generic, we can attach no particular blame to any 
person. It is only desirable that men should sec that the 
direct employment of the citizen, by a Board of Public 
Works, intensifies and completes the incentive to political 
organization, watchfulness and purity; whiie the reverse is 
the case in the sub-agency system; because the strongest in- 
centive of pure, genuine government is destroyed, and the 
inevitable results of political demoralization follow. In- 
stead of the government being watched over and guarded 
by the majorities, whose labor creates the public improve- 
ments, it is left at the mercy of the unscrupulous, who, to 
secure the contracts, would bribe you with the very money 
they make out of the overwork exacted from these citizen 
employes, whom the direct agency system would enfran- 
chise and elevate, rather than degrade, as at present done, 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 211 

by employing them on the principle of increased wages 
and shorter hours. 

Politician. Would not this increase of wages and dim- 
inution of time be a disastrous expense to the city, and be 
regarded by that portion of the general public not thus em- 
ployed, as an insidious means of buying political organiza- 
tion of the workingmeu ? 

People's Attorney. No ; although suspicions might 
be incited by those interested, or in sympathy with sub- 
agents who are sometimes powerful, both in political influ- 
ence and in the sway of established public sentiment. A lit- 
tle reflection proves the contrary. In outside industries, 
the wages as a result of the desultory methods described, 
are so low that the workman or woman is only able to ex- 
ist. Comparatively few of the unfavored million can ac- 
cumulate property. When thrown out of employment, they 
almost immediately begin to suffer. If taken sick, the hor- 
ors of a twofold calamity, destitution and pain, befall them. 
The only mutual aid or burial society they belong to is per- 
haps their Trade Union or mutual benefit society, and four 
fifths of them do not belong to those. In this helpless state 
it is easy for the sub-agent of the Municipal Works to exact. 
There is no resistance. .He can, therefore, true to the in- 
stincts of monopoly, he does exact. Helpless poor people 
become virtually, degraded slaves at his feet, because they 
have no appeal. Beggars for the privilege of remaining ser- 
vile are truly wretched creatures; yet such are they! A pit- 
iable government, then, is this you dispense in secret; and 
those who tolerate the same, boasting of the management 
of details in politics, to whom are given the destinies of an 
immense Board of the people's Public Works, are also de- 
plorable slaves, both to themselves, and to this sub-agency. 



212 A LABOR CATECHISM 

The labor agent after obtaining the contract, hires his men 
at the lowest compatible wages, and even then, constrains 
them to a constant hazard and fear of losing their occupa- 
tion. Labor contractors, clothed with such power of inter- 
est and consequence, can exact a large amount of work from 
each; and twenty percent more time than the law making 
eight hours a day's work, allows. These employes are of 
the people; who, insofar as means of redress are denied, are 
humiliated. Not satisfied with this, the performer of Mu- 
nicipal Work is, by the same propensity for gain, impelled 
to slight it ; and the working people who are the true tax- 
payers are compelled to pay, in exorbitant rents and provis- 
ions, for what has not been done. The streets of your city, 
are proverbially unclean, and in summer the stench of car- 
rion, and of putrid cesspools and sluices, and the ordures of 
the open gutters, combine their infectious miasma, breeding 
and fostering choleraic death- rage. Mad dogs rave, spume 
and snap unhindered; summer fevers burn and destroy; while 
the city surgeons burlesque medical science with autopsies, 
and learned reports on the phenomena of germ diseases and 
the discovery of the nerve fatality of hydrophobia. Neg- 
lected cities thus make science a satire on the nerve and sin- 
ew of their human victims. Evidently it costs the sub-agent 
money to purify the city; and since emoluments of profit 
can purchase reputation, he has no other incentive to do 
work well, than unprompted virtue. Competitive individ- 
ualism thus renders employers void of the second incentive 
of good citizenship ; and their workmen, by reason of bad 
treatment, are equally void of it. 

Politician. Cannot a brighter shading be given to 
some side of this dark and ghastly picture ? Give us an 
idea from a brighter point of view. The Boards of Public 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 213 

Work on streets, docks, parks and public bnildings, are 
completely under our control or may be made so by a little 
legislation. 

Attorney. Employ the men yourselves, and you 

have the bright side, as a consequence. Hire them inde- 
pendently of contractors. Direct and supervise their la- 
bor. Hire them at Eight Hours per day, if according to 
law. Give them honorable, living wages. Never turn your 
good men off to starve. Treat them with respect. Hire 
men for their intelligence and honesty as well as for their 
efficiency, as workmen. Encourage them to join and en- 
large the political organization, until every person required 
to conduct Public Works finds permanent employment un- 
der your immediate supervision. 

Politician. How long before they will get dogmatic 
and tyrannical and abuse their power ? Contrariety arid 
self-destruction seem inborn elements of the laboring class. 

Attorney. Because they have never been trained in 
industrial self government. But they will never do this. 
They have no interest in doing it ; and if they had, they 
would be soon self-accused, and detected; for they are too 
numerous to be secret. They are citizens in actual co-op- 
eration with each other for the common good ; citizens ac- 
tuated by the desire to promote the general welfare which 
forms the first incentive of political organization, to which 
they cannot but belong, and also by the desire to maintain 
themselves, and their families in respectability and comfort, 
which forms their second and strongest incentive to political 
organization, and honorable citizenship. Do away with 
this pernicious letting of ferries and other work which be- 
gets injustice, by opening opportunities for it. Endeavor to 
institute a direct employment policy; and streets will hence- 



214 A LABOR CATECHISM 

forth be kept clean ; parks well made, public edifices will be 
genuine; ferries, and other steam transit thoroughfares, 
cheap and comfortable. Employes will be honorably treat- 
ed and elevated from slavery to manhood; and the cost of 
doing it will be far less than this indirect patchwork by ob- 
sequious sub-agents of the Public Works. 

Politician. Admitting this assumption of control of 
the ferriage, passenger transit, and other such work, to be 
charming in theory, it applies only to those improvements 
over which the Boards of Public Works already hold con- 
trol. It does nothing in the way of restoring the great 
ship building, and other industries which the country has 
lost by the ravages of hard times. 

People's Attorney. If the country has lost indus- 
tries, energy will restore them. There is no reason why 
a city cannot build a ship if it can build a park; nor any 
reason why it cannot navigate ships if it can conduct intri- 
cate industries like Water Boards, Fire Departments and 
Schools. 

Politician. Do such counsels premise that shipping 
industries can be assumed by every Seaboard metropolis 
through political action ? 

Answer. They can be restored by the action of the 
Boards of Public Works. The shipping industry is a polit- 
ical necessity of the people. It forms an important co-effi- 
cient of an integral community. Without it, the strength 
and symmetry of a Seaboard are shorn away. Commercial 
plumpness, beauty, prestige and health are lost. It be- 
comes a necessity. Now under individual management, the 
shipping industry has failed, and fled from your city; al- 
though a public necessity. Being an industry necessary to 
the prosperity of the public, it deserves the consideration of 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 215 

the Board of Public Works. Yet this consideration im- 
plies sanction or rejection ; which cannot be done without 
resorting to deliberation, and the yaes and nays. In other 
words the ballot, which is political action. 

Politician. Yes, but what has the Board of Public 
Works to do with it ? 

Attorney. Public sentiment cannot find expression, 
except through the machinery of arrangement and detail. 
Boards of Public Works represent a political power, that 
manages the details in politics. You seem ignorant of this 
great politico-industrial necessity : the shipping interest of 
Seaports. You have never even taken into consideration 
this important subject. 

Politician, Nor have Boards of Public Works pow- 
er to authorize such an enterprise without authority from 
the State Capitol. 

Response. No. But the people have. Public Boards 
may not have latitude sufficient to cover such an enterprise 
without some legislative sanction ; but organizations have a 
right to bring it before public consideration, with a view of 
obtaining this legislative permission. After such prelimin- 
ary work, it belongs to the Boards of Public Works to car- 
ry it into effect. It becomes a co-operative enterprise. 
Work is done by the people after plnns and drafts, most ap- 
proved by them. The industry restored to the city, is then 
a democratical or co-operative industry instead of a monar- 
chical one as heretofore. Employes, — the managers, drafts- 
men, carpenters, machinists, blacksmiths and others employ- 
ed, feel an impulse to organize in clubs politically, and hope- 
fully work for the best interests of the enterprise; because 
they feel the doubled interest in it : — that of citizenship, 
and that of duty to themselves. 



216 A LABOR CATECHISM 

Politician-. How may that sullen tendency lie recon- 
ciled, which appears both in political government, and that 
of great monopolies, requiring employes to wear uniforms? 
People say the uniform designates caste, and look upon it 
as an aping at social distinctions. They are told to calm 
their fears; for it is only a business necessity, very conven- 
ient and innocent. But that does not explain. You allow 
that the Post Office is a proof of the ability of a people, to 
manage great Distributive Industries, more economically 
than individuals; and point for proof at a growing tenden- 
cy to distribute and infuse watchfulness among the people, 
rather than to concentrate upon individuals the great current 
of control. You even say that the people are mutually im- 
pelled to the management of their business concerns, by 
their own intimate, heart-felt and fireside interests: even by 
the tenderest family, and friendly intimacies; that they are 
compelled as a collective commonalty, each integer of which 
feels a sovereign impulse to depend upon the mutual com- 
bination of all, to enforce. This power of popular will, it is 
argued, is supreme, and becomes a true democracy. But 
how does it look democratic when it shows itself in the very 
garb of royalty ; imitating the hated uniforms of military 
despotism which has so emphatically spoken in deeds of op- 
pression and of blood ? The people will ask for a correction 
of these discrepancies in logic ; because uniforms are forced 
upon employes of both aristocratic, and government indus- 
tries. 

Attorney. The uniform is not offensive to the eye or 
the taste. It is not only neat, genteel and popular, but also 
serves the purpose of putting a stop to double dealing. It 
makes men show their colors. Whims of the dishonest may 
be shielded under colors of daily life. Uniform dress does 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY 217 

not permit occult dealing. A letter carrier or other agent, 
hired by the State is well dressed, and respected. He is on 
a par with any person who earns a living. Colors are hon- 
orable. The great bank which pays him, is the treasury of 
the people. He is given, and must execute an honorable 
trust. He is more punctually paid, and better treated than 
are the employes of most individual firms, and seems by no 
means dishonored with the uniform of the law. It is a nec- 
essity to him, assuring him special protection, and a neces- 
sity to the people, being their means of recognizing their 
employe and his responsibility. "What is said of the letter 
carrier, may also be said of the Policeman. This objection 
loses force in another point. The Gens d' armes of Europe 
are uniformed through compulsion. The spy and detective 
are very careful not to dress in uniform, when they have a 
secret role to play. It is characteristic of rogues to wear 
inattractive apparel, and they know each other by wink, 
grip, blind cypher, argot, lingo and other langue de ser- 
pent ; and the shrewdest detective, if he calculate their 
manoeuvres from ordinary lines of action, as established in 
honest, business methods upon which men career, finds it 
difficult to discover them. The statement however, that all 
officers should be required to wear their uniform, must re- 
fer to society as it is, at present ; when the number of uni- 
form-wearing officials, is as nothing, to the numbers of the 
people. What we may wear, when all become responsible, 
is a distant subject. The uniform per se, indicates simply 
nothing. It is only a matter of convenience. That as a to- 
ken of military grades, it makes some people pedantic, is 
true ; but this will, before the criticism of rising public in- 
teligence, be frowned upon; and its uses be applied as a 
mechanical necessity. 



218 A LABOR CATECHISM 

Politician-. There appears, ogreishly rising before the 
industrial world, another threatening spectre, in form of 
two, or three extraordinary inventions. Within a short pe-. 
riod there stalks unbidden, into the labor market, an in- 
strument which claims the power of superseding and of 
entirely supplanting and destroying the great, and time- 
honored art of printing. There are a half million print- 
ers, making a living by their skill in this art ! Shall all 
these honest tradesmen submit to be driven away from a 
respectable employment by an inanimate tool, with which 
the tender, and comparatively unskilled fingers of a girl, 
may perform in an hour more work than the priuter, with 
his long earned skill and close practice, is able to accom- 
plish in a day? Allow these sciences and inventions you 
hold up as elements of a high civilization, to thus under- 
mine the means of existence of this large and useful class, 
and you make them arbitrary scourges; and a curse instead 
of a blessing. Does it not look like baldest sophistry, to 
maintain that a machine which, in giving employment to 
one, robs five others of the means of existence, and throws 
them, helpless, into penury, is a benefit ? 

Attorney. There is nothing within human reach, 
whereby the wrongs described, may be adjusted, so long as 
a common sharing of the earnings of this printing machine 
is denied the aggrieved mechanics, whose skilled art, and 
whose means of support are destroyed by it. The intro- 
duction of inventions no power can stay. Nor should it. 
We may as well seek to throttle the fount of human genius. 
We may as well condemn the struggling, aspiring race to 
intellectual oblivion ; for what, more than this unearthing 
of nature's buried jewels, this analysis and synthesis, this 
resurrection of her latent virtues, can contribute evidences 



OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 219 

of mind above brute force ? Xo, Let no man dream of 
stanching the now of intellect! It is sacred. The cure 
of the evil does not lie in an act of barbarity which could 
produce only retrogression and self-contempt. 

But a cure is in your hands, as manngers of great Boards 
of Public Works whose property they are. Expect nothing 
so long as the competitive system rages and the scramblers 
for the lion's share outwit the working million who struggle 
and vainly combat, to check an emulative career which 
grasps and appropriates all, for selfish ends, giving no quar- 
ter to the outwitted victim. Xo. Hope cannot be looked 
for in the competitive system. Bitterness, poverty, humilia- 
tion, race-degeneracy, and other concomitant crimes against 
humanity exist, filling the world with social ulcers. There 
is but one method of relief. The State must become a Coop- 
Ion/ and take control of these inventions, as legitimate 
propertv, or wealth, which enriches a people, by enriching 
such State, Commonwealth, Municipality, in which they live. 
This delivers the new printing instrument, in full function, 
to society by a social cnmpact of citizens; thus inter cepAing 
the speculative incoitive. Make this noble .gift of the cit- 
izens' intellect, cormnon property y subject to the control cf 
the Boards of Public Work. 

Other magnificent inventions like the telephone, which, 
through a competitive instinct of speculative strife, fall prey 
to, and are swooped up by shrewd individuals and mon- 
opolies, with recreant unfeelingness for the fate of masses, 
must, before a rapidly engulfing problem of Labor's Rights, 
yield to the altruistic methods of management, and become, 
likewise, the common goods of humanity. 

Politictax. Even conceding a possibility that Boards 
of Public Work, under our direction as their Political engin- 



220 A LABOR CATECHISM 

eers succeed; that the printing innovation, the telephone, the 
gasworks and all similar industries now operated by, and for 
individuals, on the competitive, or emulative system, become 
common; what moral or intellectual benefit would masses of 
the people derive from the change? The same spirit of 
strife would continue. It would only be forced to course 
in broader channels. Instead of being personal, it would 
be political. In a few years it would be national. Conflict- 
ing with the interests of individuals whose business is dif- 
ferently grounded, it must inevitably tend toward the beget- 
ting of strifes, rather than the quieting of human passions! 
Indeed, who shall say that it will not provoke the strifes of 
blood, by exasperating our emulative impulses ? 

Response. Were it a private affair, a conflict between 
two neighbors, serious results might follow. But this change 
of management, in the applied methods of new inventions, 
which are as much the common property of civilization as 
the air we breathe, and as little the prey of individualists 
as water, or intelligence, or soul, or law of nature, is an af- 
fair which affects all humanity. Its province is not circum- 
scribed to petty individual interests. It sweeps over broad- 
er areas and covers the interests of humanity. It becomes 
a problem of Political Economy; involving the grandest and 
profoundest principle of mutual self-help and love; such as 
the world has never known. It becomes a school. There 
are no elements of strife in a community of interests which 
its discussions, its rensonings, its moral agitations will not 
melt, soften, purify, refine, as in the chemist's crucible; for 
it is the school of schools, the nursery of humanity, the foe 
to oppression, the messenger of practical wisdom and of re- 
ciprocal love. 



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